Why ‘What Works’ Still Won’t Work: From Evidence-Based Education to Value-Based Education

Abstract

The idea that professional practices such as education should be based upon or at least be informed by evidence continues to capture the imagination of many politicians, policy makers, practitioners and researchers. There is growing evidence of the influence of this line of thought. At the same time there is a growing body of work that has raised fundamental questions about the feasibility of the idea of evidence-based or evidenceinformed practice. In this paper I make a further contribution to this discussion through an analysis of a number of assumptions that inform the discussion. I focus on the epistemological, ontological and praxeological dimensions of the discussion and in each domain identify a deficit. In the epistemological domain there is a knowledge deficit, in the ontological domain an effectiveness or efficacy deficit and in the practice domain an application deficit. Taken together these deficits not only raise some important questions about the very idea of evidence-based practice but also highlight the role of normativity, power and values. Against this background I outline the case for the idea of value-based education as an alternative for evidence-based education. As I am generally concerned about the expectations policy makers hold about what evidence can and should achieve in professional practices such as education, my contribution is primarily meant to provide educators and other professionals with arguments that can help them to resist unwarranted expectations about the role of evidence in their practices and even more so of unwarranted interventions in their practices.

Adult reading teachers’ beliefs about how less-skilled adult readers can be taught to read.

“…The task-based approach relies largely on teachers' own ideas of what works' ('I have always found...'). This experience factor is valid but must be balanced with evidencebased practice (Biesta 2010). As the categories become more complex so do instructional practices and the range of practices utilised.…”

Lead Learner or Head Teacher? Exploring Connections Between Curriculum, Leadership and Evaluation in an ‘Age of Measurement’

“…The third arena in which the democratisation of professionalism has been distorted has to do with the way in which professional judgement in a range of different professional domains is increasingly being replaced or pushed out by a demand for an evidence-based approach (for more detail see Biesta 2007Biesta , 2010b. The idea here is that professional action can only become really professional if it is no longer based on the singular insights (or according to some: subjective opinions) of professionals, but when it becomes based upon secure scientific knowledge about 'what works,' And the claim is that the only way in which we can be certain that a professional intervention 'works' is by means of randomised controlled trials -in the literature known as 'golden standard' -which has even led to situations where professionals are prevented from doing anything unless there is positive evidence that their interventions will work.…”

“…So it needs careful argumentation to show that the turn towards the learner and away from the teacher is actually an inadequate response to authoritarian forms of teaching as control, as it only reverses the position of the student and teacher, rather than that it seeks to transform the nature of their relationship. Similarly: to argue that education should be understood as valuebased rather than evidence-based (Biesta 2010b), is often perceived as a return to a pre-scientific age rather than as an attempt to show that science -in the form of evidence or otherwise -can never do away with the need for judgement in education.…”

Tracing Curiosity with a Value Perspective

“…The study is positioned in the research field of values education. Values education understands education as a value-based discipline in which values become visible in attitudes and daily practices (Biesta, 2009(Biesta, , 2010a(Biesta, , 2015Emilson & Johansson, 2009;Swanson, 2010;Thornberg 2014). 2 There are several approaches to the concept of value (Van Deth & Scarbrough, 1998, pp.…”