The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is a federally funded program that evaluates educational interventions and provides summary ratings on its website. Educators often refer to the WWC as a trusted resource for obtaining information on programs. Despite a large research base of scholarly literature reviews and meta-analyses unanimously concluding that Direct Instruction (DI) programs are highly effective, the WWC has found very few studies of DI that meet its criteria for review and has concluded that there is little evidence to support the programs' efficacy.
Of the more than 200 studies of DI curricula that the WWC has reported examining, only seven have met their inclusion criteria "without reservation."
In contrast, John Hattie's recent summary of meta-analyses included over 300 studies, and the NIFDI research office has identified over 500 studies of DI's efficacy. This suggests that the WWC reviews have been incomplete, potentially excluding a number of studies that should have been included.
NIFDI's latest Technical Report provides an analysis of why the conclusions of the WWC regarding DI differ so markedly from the extant scholarly literature. The NIFDI analysis also points to numerous errors in the analysis of studies that have been included, detailing serious errors in the analysis of over half of the studies that fully met their inclusion criteria. Find the full-text Technical Report from NIFDI's Research Office HERE.
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Read more about the WWC and find useful links at: http://www.nifdi.org/research/what-works-clearinghouse.
