We study gender differences in the selection of traditional universities versus universities of applied sciences in Germany. Do women, due to life and job goals, less often enrol than men in traditional universities and more often enrol at the more practice- and profession-oriented universities of applied sciences? Or are women overrepresented at…

In the "what works" agenda, the case for replication studies in education has strong proponents and supporting arguments. This paper outlines some of their key claims and argues that replication studies, whilst potentially making an important contribution to the "what works" and evidence-based agenda, and education more widely,…

In 2006, public schools in Kyrgyzstan introduced free meals for all primary school children as a nutrition and poverty measure. This paper attempts to assess how participation in the free meals programme affected the school attendance of primary and secondary school students. The analysis of demographic differences in schooling across income…

The literature on the relationship between socioeconomic background (SES) and university education is inconsistent. Some studies conclude SES is important to university entry and course completion, others find trivial SES effects, net of students' prior performance, and a third group concludes that SES effects are important and policy relevant…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of explicit instruction, compared to constructivist instruction, in teaching subtraction in schools with a high concentration of students from a disadvantaged social background: eighty-seven second graders (mean age in months = 90.95, SD = 5.30). Two groups received explicit versus…

We developed a teacher professionalisation intervention, called "Language as a Tool for Learning Science", that focuses on language use during early elementary science lessons, based on video feedback coaching. The aim of this study was to investigate possible changes in teacher student behaviour during this intervention, by analysing…

Brief social-psychological interventions, like the values affirmation (VA), that target individual feelings of competency and buffer against social threats, have been shown to effectively reduce achievement gaps in randomised controlled trials. In the current study, underrepresented minority and first-generation college students in their first…

In 2 studies conducted in Germany, we investigated preservice teachers' stereotypical judgement biases regarding Turkish female students and the application of shifting standards in stereotyping. Study 1 (N = 148) showed that Turkish students' German language proficiency received lower judgements, but other -- particularly social -- dimensions…

Over the past 2 decades, a growing number of randomised controlled trials have assessed the impact on children's language skills of interventions encouraging parents to read books to their offspring. We present the results of a meta-analysis of the impact of 30 such interventions. Results indicate that they are often ineffective, and that only one…

Within evidence-based education, results from randomised controlled trials (RCTs), and meta-analyses of them, are taken as reliable evidence for effectiveness -- they speak to "what works". Extending RCT results requires establishing that study samples and settings are representative of the intended target. Although widely recognised as…

Across the evidence-based policy and practice (EBPP) community, including education, randomised controlled trials (RCTS) rank as the most "rigorous" evidence for causal conclusions. This paper argues that that is misleading. Only narrow conclusions about study populations can be warranted with the kind of "rigour" that RCTs…

What role does scientific evidence play in educational practice? Supporters of evidence-based education (EBE) see it as a powerful way of improving the quality of public services which is readily applicable to the education sector. Academic scholarship, however, points out important limits to this applicability. I offer an account inspired by…

This paper examines the insistent claims by advocates of evidence-based teaching that it is a rigorous scientific approach. The paper questions the view that randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses are the only truly scientific methods in educational research. It suggests these claims are often based on a rhetorical appeal which relies on…

Effect size is the basis of much evidence-based education policymaking. In particular, it is assumed to measure the educational effectiveness of interventions. Policy is being driven by the influential work of John Hattie, the Education Endowment Foundation, and others, which is grounded in this assumption. This article demonstrates the assumption…

EBP -- evidence-based policy and practice -- has generated intense controversy. A rough continuum of positions can be discerned: At one pole are "tough-minded" commentators distinguished by their support of EBP; however, there are serious internal differences in this camp, for some regard randomised field trials (RFTs) as the gold…