Evidence Based Practices: What are they? Who is Defining Them? and How does it Relate to My Work? Lou Danielson Susan Sanchez, Brian Cobb, Kathleen Lane & Rob Horner

Goals of the Panel Provide a Context Describe the work of the What Works Clearinghouse Describe the work on Levels of Evidence Explore implications for teacher training and professional development Explore implications for technical assistance

EBPs A Driving Force What are they? What type of research counts as evidence? How much research do we need? How do we operationalize the practices? How do we support implementation with fidelity, by typical implementers in typical settings? What resources are needed to support maintenance and Scale-up? How do we communicate about EBPs?

Defining EBPs Little national consensus about standards of identifying EBPs Federal initiatives vary in both the process to identify and the criteria for EBPs Those practices that meet a set of explicit criteria for assessing the quality of their scientific design and method Any practice that has been established as effective through scientific research according to some set of criteria

A Few Considerations Judge quality of the evidence related to use High quality evidence is essential but not sufficient Internal validity not the only issue that must be considered in light of the work that we do Interventions that require a great deal of time, money or expertise will not be implemented and sustained on a large scale -Fuchs An EBP is one thing – implementing an EBP is an entirely different thing- Fixsen

EBP Efforts Cochrane Collaboration –1993, one of the first initiatives to attempt to conduct and publicize reviews of EBPs in a systematic manner – focus on health care and RCTs Campbell Collaboration – 2000, modeled after Cochrane, What works, What doesn’t & What may be harmful- focus on social sciences, includes more than RCTs

Best Practice” Lists –Consumer report ratings –Colorado Blueprints –Surgeon General’s Report –Approved vs. Disapproved model, promising, not effective Challenges – variable ratings, variable criteria, same practice different ratings on different lists- variability is confusing for consumers

EBP & Policy National Research Council Report 2002 “Scientific Research in Education” –RCTs are the superior method for establishing causal relationships between practices and outcomes Authorization/Re-authorization of NCLB, IDEA, Education Sciences Reform Act WWC Division of Research Papers- Odom et. al.

Research Research alone is not enough to change practice and improve results Not possible to wait for “the gold standard” in every area we cover School bus pulls up everyday Front line implementers need information about the best that we know Goal is to ensure that the best that we know is what is happening in every schools everyday for every child