decision making

This chapter is intended to help solve questions concerning how to judge the appropriateness of assessment or measurement decisions and of the information used to make decisions.

Observational data collected in ecologically valid measurement contexts are likely to be influenced by contextual factors irrelevant to the research question. Using multiple sessions and raters often improves the stability of scores for variables from such contexts.

This review assesses the effectiveness of school-based curricula, finance, management, and teacher’s decision-making. This report has implications for the impact of charter schools, as the primary intervention in this model is local control. The report finds limited evidence of the effectiveness of these reforms, especially from low-income countries.

This article examines the evidence-based practice decision-making heuristic in the broader context of clinical decision making.

This journal attempts to fill the chasm by helping doctors find the information that will ensure they can provide optimum management for their patients. 

Including cost-effectiveness data in the evaluation of programs is the next step in the evolution of evidence-based practice. Evidence-based practice is grounded in three complementary elements: best available evidence, professional judgment, and client values and context. In this article, I discuss some of the considerations that have to be addressed in the decision-making process and implications of including cost-effectiveness analyses in data-based decision making.

Over the last fifty years, there have been many educational reform efforts, most of which have had a relatively short lifespan and failed to produce the promised results. One possible reason for this is for the most part these innovations have been poorly implemented. In this chapter, the author proposes a data-based decision making approach to assuring high quality implementation.

This paper examines data on 39 charter schools and correlates these data with school effectiveness. We find that class size, per-pupil expenditure, teacher certification, and teacher training—are not correlated with school effectiveness. In stark contrast, we show that frequent teacher feedback, the use of data to guide instruction, high-dosage tutoring, increased instructional time, and high expectations—explains approximately 45 percent of the variation in school effectiveness.

A growing number of evidence-based psychotherapies hold the promise of substantial benefits for children, families, and society.  For the benefits of evidence-based programs to be realized on a scale sufficient to be useful to individuals and society, evidence-based psychotherapies need to be put into practice outside of controlled clinical trials. 

This study examined the effectiveness of innovative curriculum-based measurement (CBM) classwide decision-making structures within general education mathematics instruction, with and without recommendations for how to incorporate CBM feedback into instructional planning.

This study examined elementary school principal preparation programs to identify which program characteristics produced principals who were able to build well-qualified teams of teachers and improve student performance.

In this article, we examine assessment and accountability in the context of a prevention-oriented assessment and intervention system designed to assess early reading progress formatively.

This Article introduces implicit bias-an aspect of the new science of unconscious mental processes that has substantial bearing on discrimination law.

For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don't know there's anything wrong with it.

This book provides information on how to identify the misuse of statistics.

This study examines longitudinal from nine high schools nominated as leading practitioners of Continuous Improvement (CI) practices. The researchers compared continuous improvement best practices to teachers actual use of data in making decisions. The study found teachers to be receptive, but also found that significant obstacles were interfering with the effective use of data that resulted in changes in instruction.

This evaluation used Messick's construct validity as a conceptual framework for an empirical study assessing the validity of use, utility, and impact of office discipline referral (ODR) measures for data-based decision making about student behavior in schools. 

Demonstrates the experimenting society model using data-based decision making and collaborative consultation to evaluate behavior-management intervention strategies in 25 seventh graders. Each intervention results in improved behavior, but active teaching of classroom rules was determined to be most effective. 

This book provides information on the process and skills of data visualization, teaching the concepts and skills of how to present data and inspiring effective visual design.

Scientists have discredited claims that listening to classical music enhances intelligence, yet this so-called "Mozart Effect" has actually exploded in popularity over the years.

An old disagreement over how to teach children to read -- whole-language versus phonics -- has re-emerged in California, in a new form. Previously confined largely to education, the dispute is now a full-fledged political issue there, and is likely to become one in other states.

Research on data-based decision making has proliferated around the world, fueled by policy recommendations and the diverse data that are now available to educators to inform their practice. Yet, many misconceptions and concerns have been raised by researchers and practitioners. This paper surveys and synthesizes the landscape of the data-based decision-making literature to address the identified misconceptions and then to serve as a stimulus to changes in policy and practice as well as a roadmap for a research agenda.

This paper discusses the benefits of using brief experimental analyses to aid in treatment selection, identifies the forms of treatment that are most appropriate for this type of analysis, and describes key design elements for comparing 2 or more treatments efficiently. 

Implementing evidence-based practices requires not only knowledge of various interventions and practices but also professional judgment in selecting and applying an intervention that best meets the needs of the child and the family.  Previous work on decision-making in evidence-based practices has focused on describing evidence-based practices, how the identification of evidence-based practices has affected the field of education (and, specifically, special education), and strategies for implementing evidence-based practices

We should stop being so embarrassed by uncertainty and embrace it as a strength rather than a weakness of scientific reasoning

In this article we discuss guidelines and algorithms as a means of addressing the complexity of pharmacologic treatment of people with severe mental illnesses and disseminating relevant research findings.

This book reveals how the information revolution is changing the way doctors make decisions. Michael Millenson, a three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee as a health-care reporter for the Chicago Tribune, illustrates serious flaws in contemporary medical practice and shows ways to improve care and save tens of thousands of lives.

This position paper contends that the whole language approach to reading instruction has been disproved by research and evaluation but still pervades textbooks for teachers, instructional materials for classroom use, some states' language-arts standards and other policy documents, teacher licensing requirements and preparation programs, and the professional context in which teachers work. 

Child study teams (CSTs) are involved in making decisions about many aspects of the delivery of special services to handicapped students. However, a number of factors inhibit the decision-making process within CSTs. These factors have their origins in the implementation of the team process at the local education agency (LEA) level, the preparation of CST members to participate in team decision making, and in the difficulties encountered in communicating discipline-specific information.

This Data Point examines the relationship between public and private school principals’ perceived influence over various decisions made at their schools before the coronavirus pandemic. This information was reported by U.S private and public school principals on the principal survey of the 2017–18 National Teacher and Principal Survey.

Using the collective leadership framework, this study examines (a) how principals perceive their own influence and that of other key stakeholders in various school decisions and (b) how principals’ perceived influences of other stakeholders are associated with their own influence.

Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific
knowledge is its greatest strength—and the greatest reason we can trust it.

This research paper reports on testing the hypothesis that music and spatial task performance are causally related. Two complementary studies are presented that replicate and explore previous findings.

The focus of the book is on essential concepts in educational statistics, understanding when to use various statistical tests, and how to interpret results. This book introduces educational students and practitioners to the use of statistics in education and basic concepts in statistics are explained in clear language. 

This page describes the conflict of interest and what should we do about it.

This review will briefly address the nature of conflicts of interest in research, including the importance of both financial and non-financial conflicts, and the potential effectiveness and limits of various strategies for managing such conflicts.

Efficient use of educational resources is a perennial challenge for school systems. Maximizing the impact of education interventions to magnify student achievement is an important goal for all school districts. This guide examines the use of expenditure-to-performance ratios as a critical indicator for school systems to help decide which interventions make sense when education dollars are at a premium. It describes how states and districts can use available data on district expenditures and student academic achievement to calculate six district-level expenditure-to-performance ratios.

This article presents a definition and rationale for evidence-based reform in education, and a discussion of the current state of evidence-based research, focusing on China, the U.S., and the UK. The article suggests ways in which Chinese, U.S., UK, and other scholars might improve the worldwide quality of evidence-based reform in education.

In EBP decisions are to be based on the integration of best available evidence, clinical expertise, and client values and context. In this paper, the authors explore the construct best available evidence and consider complementary sources of evidence that can be used to guide decision making.

Evidence-based practice is a decision-making framework.  This paper describes the relationships among the three cornerstones of this framework.

The Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) is an initiative aimed at harnessing data to help scholars, policymakers, educators, and parents learn how to improve educational opportunity for all children. The data are publicly available here, so that anyone can obtain detailed information about American schools, communities, and student success.

This paper examines a range of education failures: common mistakes in how new practices are selected, implemented, and monitored. The goal is not a comprehensive listing of all education failures but rather to provide education stakeholders with an understanding of the importance of vigilance when implementing new practices.

The debate about the safety of calcium-channel antagonists provided an opportunity to study financial conflicts of interest in medicine. This project was designed to examine the relation between authors' published positions on the safety of calcium-channel antagonists and their financial interactions with the pharmaceutical industry.

There are many rationales for group, rather than individual, decision making. Theorized advantages include more information to contribute to the decision, more diverse perspectives to inform deliberation, and greater efficiency for implementation.

This paper describes the problem of publication bias with reference to its history in a number of fields, with special reference to the area of educational research.

Of Edward Tufte’s books, this is the most design oriented. It provides examples using maps, charts, scientific presentations, diagrams, computer interfaces, statistical graphics and tables, stereo photographs, guidebooks, courtroom exhibits, timetables, use of color, and a pop-up to illustrate his points on the effective use of visual mediums to communicate the meaning of data and impart important messages.

This is the first book from Edward Tufte and it lays out his theories and rules that are the basis for the effective display of information and data to maximize communication.

This third book by Edward Tufte is a guide on how to more effectively communicate information visually. It offers examples of poorly presented information and the dire consequences that can result from mediocre and inadequately thought out presentations. It provides concrete samples of effective ways to present statistics and tips one can use to avoid many of the pitfalls of powerpoint presentations.

Using the data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), this Data Point summarizes the number of U.S. adults with low levels of English literacy and describes how they differ by nativity status¹ and race/ethnicity.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas.

This website contains information regarding the Committee process, including the regulations, laws, policies, and guidelines that govern disclosures and conflict of interest.

This book offers concrete examples from educational testing to illustrate the importance of empirically and logically scrutinizing the evidence used to make education policy decisions. Wainer uses statistical evidence to show why some of the most widely held beliefs in education may be wrong.

The use of educational data to make decisions and foster improvement is increasing dramatically. Federal and state accountability mandates have created a strong market for formal achievement testing, both in terms of state achievement tests and benchmarking assessments that help predict performance on these tests.

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the effects of manipulating the data base used for instructional decision making on student achievement.