Characteristics of Studies that Might Meet the What Works.pptVIP

* The only kinds of studies that can be submitted as evidence of Moderate or Strong Effectiveness, and that have the potential to meet WWC standards, must focus on an intervention – a program, practice, or strategy – and whether it is effective. Studies that are not eligible to be reviewed by the WWC include those that solely: Identify a problem (e.g., the growing size of achievement gaps, a high dropout rate) Track how outcomes at a particular school or school district have changed over time (e.g., rising test scores or college completion rates) Link different phases of student or faculty experiences to each other (e.g., reading well by 3rd grade predicts graduating from high school, a certain number of credits earned by sophomore year is related to college completion). Describe how a new strategy was put in place (e.g., the steps to using data-based decision making). These ineligible studies may help document a need for an intervention, but they do not indicate whether the intervention can be plausibly linked to higher or lower student outcomes. In order for the WWC to determine if a study meets the standards, the evidence applicants submit must be the full technical study report or article, not a brief or summary version. Literature reviews or “meta-analyses” summarize, making it impossible to review each study individually. * * For a study to meet WWC standards, either with or without reservations, it will need (at a minimum) to have these 4 criteria: A participant group and a comparison group: A clear set of students, teachers, counselors, or schools who participates in the intervention (the participant group) and a set who do not participate (the comparison group), with no overlap. This means that the intervention has to be sufficiently well defined that it’s possible for researchers to create these two distinct groups. Equivalence prior to anyone’s participation (baseline): Show that the characteristics of the two groups are statistically sim