1. David Didau
ResearchED - 6th September 2014

2. How many research papers are
published each year?
• 28,000 – 90,000
• So, why hasn’t research changed
teaching?
• Does research only tell us what was, not
what might be?

3. What is education for?
• Transmission of culture?
• Making children clever?
• Preparation for work?
• Preparation for effective citizenship?
• Preparation for life?
• Challenging the establishment?
• Education is “values saturated”

4. We’re all wrong!
To err is human

5. If it looks like a duck…

6. The Illusion of Naïve Realism

7. The eyes see only what the
brain is prepared to
comprehend.
Henri Bergson

9. The problem with intuition
Our brains are not rational or logical; we
protect ourselves from being wrong
– Confirmation bias & the Backfire Effect
– The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight
–Sunk Cost Fallacy
– The Anchoring Effect
David McRaney, You Are Not So Smart

10. I can live with doubt and
uncertainty and not knowing. I
think it is much more interesting
to live not knowing than to have
answers that might be wrong.
Richard Feynman

12. Darwin & the myth of progress
The growth of our knowledge is the result of a
process closely resembling what Darwin called
‘natural selection’; that is, the natural selection
of hypotheses: our knowledge consists, at
every moment, of those hypotheses which have
shown their (comparative) fitness by surviving
so far in their struggle for existence; a
competitive struggle which eliminates those
hypotheses which are unfit.
Karl Popper

13. What we think
success looks like

14. What it actually
looks like

15. When others disagree
We assume:
1. They are ignorant
2. They are stupid
3. They are evil.

16. The problem with evidence
• It’s not the same as proof:
– “You can prove anything with evidence!”

18. “You can prove anything with
evidence!”
• Effectiveness of leech therapy in chronic
lateral epicondylitis: a randomized controlled
trial (Pain 2011)
• Maggot Therapy Takes Us Back to the Future
of Wound Care: New and Improved Maggot
Therapy for the 21st Century (Sherman 2009)
• Laser drilling holes in components by
combined percussion and trepan drilling
(Emer 1998)

19. The problem with evidence
• It’s not the same as proof:
– “You can prove anything with evidence!”
• Context is king
– can we generalise?
• What if it conflicts with our values?

20. Where’s the evidence!
• Getting behaviour right should be schools’
top priority
• Students should enjoy learning, but
enjoyment should not be our aim
• Everyone can be better at anything
• Learning happens when you think hard
• Any policy predicated on the belief or
expectation that teachers can or should work
harder will fail.

21. Correlation is not causation
• How can we isolate the variables in
classroom research?
• If you look for a link, you’ll probably find
it…

22. 50,000
45,000
40,000
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
Number of Pirates on the "High Seas"
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

23. 15.8
15.6
15.4
15.2
15
14.8
14.6
14.4
Average Global Temperature °C
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

24. 16
15.8
15.6
15.4
15.2
15
14.8
14.6
14.4
Piracy reduces Global Warming
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000 45000
Average Global Temperature ('C)
Number of pirates active

25. 9
8
7
6
5
4
3
Litres of 100% Alcohol Per Capita (Adult)
1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900

26. 1.400
1.200
1.000
0.800
0.600
0.400
0.200
0.000
Number of Clergy (all demonination) per 1,000 population
1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900

27. 9.0
8.0
7.0
6.0
5.0
4.0
3.0
Increasing the Clergy increases alcohol consumption
0.000 0.200 0.400 0.600 0.800 1.000 1.200 1.400
Alcohol Consumption (litres)
Number of Clergy per 1,000 population

28. Where’s the evidence!
The existence of the experimental
method makes us think we have the
means of solving the problems which
trouble us; through problems and
methods pass one another by.
Wittgenstein

29. How People Learn (Donovan 2001)
To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students
must:
a) have a deep foundational knowledge of factual
knowledge,
b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a
conceptual framework, and
c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval
and application
• No amount of empirical research could ever
demonstrate that these things are not connected!

30. Measurability
• Do we look for what’s easy to measure
rather than measuring what’s important?
• What is the ‘unit of education’?
• Can we really trust effect sizes?

31. So, what should we do in schools?
• What the research says?
• What we’ve always done?
• What works for us?
• What gets results?
• Or, make predictions that are meaningful
and measurable?

32. The power of prediction
• Does a physicist have to examine all
atoms to be able to make predictions
about the behaviour of all atoms in all
contexts?
• Do we believe children are broadly similar
or different?
• Can we make generalisations about how
we learn?

33. Bayes’ Theorem
• P(A), the prior probability - the initial degree of belief in A.
• P(A|B), the conditional probability - the degree of belief in A
having accounted for B.
• The quotient P(B|A)/P(B) represents the support B
provides for A.

34. The burden of proof
• How likely does a prediction seem?
– Does it look like a duck?
• “Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain
alive to guess again.”
– Is it falsifiable, replicable, controlled, large
enough, published?
• Always remember the bias blindspot!

35. Things which seem probable
• The spacing effect
• The testing effect
• Cognitive load theory

36. “As learning occurs, so does
forgetting…”

37. The spacing effect
Hermann Ebbinghaus, 1885
About
90%?

38. The Testing Effect
Which study pattern will result in the best
test results?
1. STUDY STUDY STUDY STUDY – TEST
2. STUDY STUDY STUDY TEST – TEST
3. STUDY STUDY TEST TEST – TEST
4. STUDY TEST TEST TEST – TEST

39. Too much openness and you accept every
notion, idea, and hypothesis — which is
tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much
skepticism — especially rejection of new
ideas before they are adequately tested —
and you’re not only unpleasantly grumpy, but
also closed to the advance of science. A
judicious mix is what we need.
Carl Sagan

40. To get anywhere, or even live a
long time, a man has to guess,
and guess right, over and over
again, without enough data for a
logical answer.
Robert A. Heinlein

41. Dubium sapientiae
initium