Since the 1990s, there have been repeated calls for the systematic use of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to inform educational decision-making. The advent of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) -- described as England's What Works Centre for Education -- in 2011 has made this a reality in England: by 2020, over a third of English schools…

Educational stakeholders are keen to know the magnitude and importance of different interventions. However, the way evidence is communicated to support understanding of the effectiveness of an intervention is controversial. Typically studies in education have used the standardised mean difference as a measure of the impact of interventions. This…

Autistic children and adults who are non-verbal/minimally verbal or have an intellectual disability have often been excluded from Autism Spectrum Disorder research. Historical, practical and theoretical reasons for this exclusion continue to deter some researchers from work with this underserved population. We discuss why these reasons are neither…

This paper applies Dennis' [(2009). "What does it Mean when an Ethnographer Intervenes?" "Ethnography and Education" 4 (2): 131-146] modes of ethnographic intervention to a fieldwork experience of an observed secondary school lesson in England. Ethnographic research raises numerous ethical dilemmas, in the face of which…

Over the recent years there has been a shift in the field of early childhood research to involving young children in the research process. A vast body of literature [Evans, P., & Fuller, M. (1996). Hello. Who am I speaking to? Communicating with pre-school children in educational research settings. "Early Years," 17(1), 17-20; Clark,…

This article reports a small-scale qualitative study of work with staff in five Nurture Groups (NGs) for pupils aged 5-11 years. Three separate sessions in each Nurture Group were conducted according to narrative methodology and the following themes emerged in analysis within the context of the relationships developed with staff including: 1) the…

The Evidence-based Literacy Support-"Literacy Octopus" Trial tested a range of dissemination interventions and resources, all of which aimed to engage schools in using evidence-based materials to improve teaching and learning in Key Stage 2 literacy. Four delivery partners provided interventions. These included light-touch,…

This summary reports the findings from two cluster-randomised trials of Drinkaware's school-based In:tuition life skills and alcohol education intervention: one trial of the programme for 10-11 year olds in primary schools, and another for 12-13 year olds in secondary schools. The trials have been carried out by the National Foundation for…

Papers from the proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society was submitted in two volumes. Volume 1 contains papers submitted at the conference held in Sofia, Bulgaria, June 14-17, 2016. Volume 2 contains papers submitted at the 4th International Partner Conference of the International Research Centre…

We consider the effects of daytime fasting by pregnant women during the lunar month of Ramadan on their children's test scores at age seven. Using English register data, we find that scores are 0.05 to 0.08 standard deviations lower for Pakistani and Bangladeshi students exposed to Ramadan in early pregnancy. These estimates are downward biased to…

In this study we report some of the outcomes of a study of professional learning that took place in cross school partnerships as they worked towards promoting creativity in schools. The methodology developed by Engestrom and his colleagues at The Centre for Developmental Work Research in Helsinki was adopted. This form of intervention involves the…

The Government's recent Creative Partnerships initiative in England represents part of the resurgence of interest in creativity which was stimulated by the NACCCE's 1999 "All our futures" report. However, many questions remain about the impact and processes of creative partnerships. The field of creativity research has been dominated by…

This article reports on the conduct and results of a randomised controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a teacher-led intervention to improve teenagers' knowledge of emergency contraception. The trial was successfully conducted in 24 mixed-sex state secondary schools in Avon, South-west England. The intervention was popular with both…

This document presents the key principles underpinning effective evaluations as applied to policy initiatives in the field of lifelong learning (LL) and the various methods available to implement them. The following are among the topics discussed in Chapters 1-6: (1) the distinction between monitoring, modeling, and evaluation and considerations…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…