Evidence-Based Reform in Education: Global Perspectives

For a very long time, educational policies have been based on ideological standpoints or individual views rather than evidence or best practices. However, evidence-based reform has been gaining momentum in the past two decades in many parts of the world. Evidence-based reform is dedicated to bringing education into a cycle of innovation, evaluation, and dissemination that has been proven successful in fields such as medicine, agriculture, and technology (Haskins, 2014; Kolada, 2013; Slavin, 2020). For example, medical experts around the world are currently doing everything they can to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. When evaluating whether a treatment or a vaccine is effective, what they rely on are not small studies with questionable methodologies but large, well-conducted randomized controlled trials (e.g., Ghebreyesus, 2020). Medical experts and their evidence-based practice have helped humanity overcome countless challenges and are trusted by governments worldwide. Do high-quality studies and evidence play such an important role in educational policies and practices? In response to this question, this special issue invites researchers and practitioners from seven countries spreading across Asia, North America, and Europe to provide an overview of evidence-based reform in education.

Slavin et al. (2020) present a definition and rationale for evidence-based reform in education and point out four essential ways of evidence-based reform: (a) creating policies and systems to continually add to knowledge and effective practice, (b) finding out what works in high-quality experiments, (c) making educators and policymakers aware of proven programs, and (d) providing incentives and resources for schools to implement proven programs. The eight articles in this special issue follow these four essential ways to depict the past, the present, and the future of evidence-based reform in the field of education.

In terms of policies and systems, Pellegrini and Vivanet (2020) examine the progress of evidence-based educational policies in Europe and identify organizations for the generation and dissemination of evidence. The process began in 2006 and has since enjoyed remarkable progress through several initiatives intended to spread a culture of evidence in education. Pellegrini and Vivanet (2020) also discuss the most relevant challenges facing the development of evidence-informed education policies in Europe. Like Pellegrini and Vivanet (2020), Edovald and Nevill (2020) summarize the successes and lessons of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), one of the leading organizations of the What Works movement. The success of the EEF demonstrates that it is feasible to rapidly expand the use of school-based randomized controlled trials in a country context, set high standards for research independence, transparency, and design, and generate new evidence on what works.

With regard to high-quality experiments, Xie (2020) takes an example of the effects of educational technology on mathematics achievement to compare school-based experimental studies of the U.S., a leader of the evidence-based reform, with those of China, an undecided observer. He finds several intervention programs with strong evidence of effectiveness in these two countries, which are worthy of scale-up application. However, the quantity and quality of experimental studies is concerning in Chinese mainland. Another high-quality large-scale trial is conducted by Gu et al. (2020) in Nanjing, China. Their treatment group employs an award-winning online learning platform. The positive findings strengthen the value of the widespread use of the program, regardless of English or Chinese language context, and indicate that teachers and their teaching behaviors are critical to the success of the initiative.

Slavin et al. (2020) share the recent efforts of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University to make more educators and policymakers aware of research-proven interventions, through creating user-friendly websites, newsletters, and blogs. What Works Clearinghouse, as a flagship initiative of the Institute of Education Sciences, is also established to review research on practical programs in many areas.

Ross and Morrison (2020) examine the challenges that frustrate schools in implementing proven programs. They use a case illustration of a complex initiative in a large, diverse school district in the U.S. to illustrate how current policies and expectations regarding evidence support for educational programs are filtered through multiple agendas and personal needs of key stakeholders. To achieve better educational practices through research evidence, evaluators have to acquire nontraditional roles that go beyond routine execution of rigorous studies. van Kuijk et al. (2020) show that implementation fidelity is a serious concern and needs to be addressed systematically, even for a well-researched program like the Success for All, one of the largest school reform models in the U.S. They provide structured theory and method to assess constructs related to implementation and their stimulating and hindering factors. For successful implementation, the crucial factors appear to be leadership, fulfilling organizational conditions, staff development, and implementing all program components together.

Finally, Dachet and Baye (2020) take the case of educational reform in French-speaking Belgium to describe the process of integrating evidence-based education into an educational reform within a country where the influence of qualitative research is important. The article highlights concrete actions that ensure the gradual establishment and acceptance by political and educational actors of an evidence-based reform.