Evidence of confusion about evidence of causes: comments on the debate about EBP in education

Phillips, D. C.

doi:10.1080/13803611.2019.1617980

Cited by 9 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Experienced policymakers recognise the inadequacy of linear policy cycles and top-down hierarchical schemas where policy agendas are conceived by government, developed by officials and implemented as planned (Newman, 2017;Oliver et al, 2014;Phillips, 2019). A critique of rationalist assumptions does not mean we should be pessimistic about the prospects for evidence-informed policy, as Sanderson (2002, p. 7) concludes, 'the conditions that have generated the postmodernist "bonfire of the certainties" do not signal the end of the need for an analytical or cognitive basis for decision making and action'.…”

Section: The Failure Of Conventional Models Of Policymakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strengthening the science–policy interface in Ireland

O’Connor¹

2022

Administration

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Section: The Failure Of Conventional Models Of Policymakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strengthening the science–policy interface in Ireland

O’Connor¹

2022

Administration

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Experiment’s persistent failure in education inquiry, and why it keeps failing

Thomas

2020

British Educational Res J

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Natural scientists are relaxed about the multiple forms experiment takes in their various fields. Yet in education we have for many years constrained our notion of experiment. This methodological circumscription has been self‐imposed on the grounds that experiment of a particular, well‐defined form offers the clearest evidence of a link between cause and effect in assessing the impact of interventions. I challenge the legitimacy of this assertion and further argue that the model of intervene‐and‐experiment is ineffective and misleading. There is currently emerging a large body of findings from such experiment, and evaluations of these—like similar evaluations from a wave of experiments in the 1960s and 1970s across education and the applied social sciences—mainly concur on how disappointing the findings from this kind of work are. I argue that interventions are found to have largely nugatory consequences because the influence of independent variables is routinely overwhelmed by powerful contextual influences. I discuss the significance and nature of these contextual influences and question the legitimacy of the idea that one can test interventions with formal experiment in education. I conclude that the assertion that formal experiment can be fruitfully employed may drive policy in unhelpful directions, as models which may be successful in some circumstances are rejected on the basis of low effectiveness scores, while others in which potential effectiveness is indicated are unproductively imposed where circumstances are unpropitious. I suggest that a more unrestricted interpretation of ‘experiment’ needs to return to education discourse.

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On Beyond Constructivism

Larison

2021

Sci & Educ

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Evidence of confusion about evidence of causes: comments on the debate about EBP in education

Cited by 9 publications

References 15 publications

Strengthening the science–policy interface in Ireland

Strengthening the science–policy interface in Ireland

Experiment’s persistent failure in education inquiry, and why it keeps failing

On Beyond Constructivism

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