Table of Contents

PART A – THE DIVIDED FIELD


1 ORIENTATION
A divided field
Problem statement
Crisis


2 GROUNDWORK
The landscape
Theory, evidence, research and practice


3 FACTIONS
The evidence-informed education field
Who’s who?
The wider field


PART B – WHY ‘WHAT WORKS’ DOESN’T (...YET)


4 HOW ‘WHAT WORKS’ WORKS
Introducing ‘What Works’ research
Blueprint for success?


5 THE PIPELINE
The research to practice gap
Traversing the gap
Evaluating ‘What Works’
Summarising and communicating


6 THE LAST MILE
The return journey
The value of evidence
Just do it
Why ‘What Works’ doesn’t (...yet)


PART C – PROBLEMS IN EFFECTIVENESS AND IMPROVEMENT RESEARCH


7 IF YOU CAN’T MEASURE IT...
The Educational Effectiveness and Improvement (EEI) approach
Measuring school effectiveness
Effective teachers and teaching
System effectiveness


8 INSIDE THE BLACK BOX
Measurement in EEI research
All models are wrong
Should schools buy pot plants?
What matters?


9 KNOWING AND BEING
Disconnects
Some models are useful
Policy adventures


PART D – EVIDENCE-INFORMED EDUCATION
10 A REUNION
Bits of the jigsaw
The evidence-informed education system