Evidence-based practice: What is it? (updated Aug 2017)
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Dr Kerry Hempenstall, Senior Industry Fellow, School of Education, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
All my blogs can be viewed on-line or downloaded as a Word file or PDF at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/olxpifutwcgvg8j/AABU8YNr4ZxiXPXzvHrrirR8a?dl=0
This is a new paper related to a document I published once before.
The oldish paper of mine was originally published in 2013, and was then added in 2017. Hits: 35,580
https://www.nifdi.org/resources/hempenstall-blog/387-first-blog-evidence-based-practice.html
What age were some of the old journal papers? They varied from 1974 to 2011. Wow!
I was interested to see if this newer EBP literature has differed over time. It is excepted from publishing other than the years 2020 to 2025.
One noticeable issue with more recent publications is the breadth of promoted evidence bases – more teacher panels and educations.
What has changed these days? Let’s look for recent evidence in various research papers.
Evidence-based teaching practices Australian Education Research Organisation (2022)
“This report has been produced to support the Teacher Education Expert Panel in advising Education Ministers on key reforms needed to strengthen ITE programs to deliver confident, effective, classroom-ready graduates (Teacher Expert Panel Terms of Reference, 2022). It outlines the key evidence-based practices ITE graduates should be taught to meet the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST), paying particular attention to teaching reading, literacy and numeracy, classroom management, cultural responsiveness, teaching students with diverse needs and working with families/carers.”
“It may or may not be surprising to hear education has not always held to evidence-based practices. Traditional practices tend to rely more on personal experience and opinion. While there should be some personal experience and opinion in the classroom, much of the core of education should rely on research-based methods, strategies, and practices that support students with quality, proven instruction.
The Glossary of Education Reform explains the shift toward evidence-based education this way: “Historically, educators had to rely largely on personal experience, professional judgment, past practices, established conventions, and other subjective factors to make decisions about how and what to teach—all of which could potentially be inaccurate, misguided, biased, or even detrimental to students. With the advent of modern data systems and research techniques, educators now have access to more objective, precise, and accurate information about student learning, academic achievement, and educational attainment.”
There are advantages and disadvantages to all teaching strategies; however, because the advantages seem to outweigh the disadvantages, the use of evidence-based practices is becoming more important in schools.
Evidence-based practices provide educators with reliable, research-based tools that have many benefits over some of the more traditional practices. Evidence-based practice is more objective because its basis is research evidence rather than personal opinion. Traditional practices are often based on personal experience or anecdotal evidence rather than scientific studies and research findings. Because of this, evidence-based practice tends to be more rigorous due to the in-depth levels of analysis and evaluation it goes through during a systematic review.
Australian Education Research Organisation. (2022). Evidence-based teaching practices. https://www.edresearch.edu.au/research/research-reports/use-evidence-based-practices-schools-national-snapshot
Quality initial teacher education review (2022)
“ Graduates need more support to be better prepared in key areas of classroom readiness.
ITE course content should be evidence-based to ensure high-quality teacher preparation.
A greater focus on phonics and phonemic awareness as foundational early reading skills is needed, both in ITE courses and in classroom practice.”
Department of Education, Skills and Employment. (2022). Next steps: report of the quality initial teacher education review, Department of Education, Skills and Employment, https://www.dese.gov.au/quality-initial-teacher-education-review/resources/next-stepsreport-quality-initial-teacher-education-review
Three key areas of evidence-based teaching practices (2020)
“This report provides a summary of the recommended course content for initial teacher education (ITE) based on the research evidence base. The recommendations align with the graduate teacher standards and focus on three key areas of evidence-based teaching practices: the brain and learning, effective pedagogical practices, and classroom management. In addition, three key areas that are enabling factors for learning are also covered: cultural responsiveness, family engagement, and diverse learners.
Many teachers rely on intuitive expertise gained from years of arduous trial and error, ongoing on-the-job professional learning, and engagement with successful and accomplished colleagues to find the most effective and successful practices, often encountering inconsistent or contradictory advice in this process. The time expended upskilling on fundamental knowledge on-the-job could be more effectively used to further enhance expertise if these foundations were consistently taught through ITE programs. Evidence-based practices in education are practices backed up by research evidence. This means there is broad consensus from rigorously conducted evaluations that they work in many cases across various contexts, for different subgroups of students and various locations. Additionally, there is extensive rigorous research on approaches to teaching subject-specific content, such as reading and numeracy, that can complement generic evidence-based pedagogical approaches.
Georgiou D, Mok SY, Fischer F, Vermunt JD and Seidel T (2020). Evidence-Based Practice in Teacher Education: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Practical Knowledge. Front. Educ. 5:559192. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2020.559192 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2020.559192/full
AI Overview
"Evidence-based practice in education refers to the continued emphasis on using research-backed strategies in teaching, with a particular focus on adapting to the changes brought on by the pandemic, including increased reliance on technology, remote learning experiences, and addressing potential student learning gaps caused by disruptions, while still prioritizing practices like explicit instruction, differentiated teaching, formative assessment, and data-driven decision making to optimize student learning outcomes.
'Building a culturally responsive Australian teaching workforce: Toolkit and Report' (2022)
“Evidence-based practices in education are those practices supported by research evidence as to their effectiveness. This means they have broad consensus from rigorously conducted evaluations that they work in many cases across various contexts, for different subgroups of students and in various locations. Additionally, there are evidence-based practices on approaches to teaching subject-specific content, such as reading and numeracy, that can complement generic evidence-based pedagogical approaches.”
AITSL (2022) 'Building a culturally responsive Australian teaching workforce: Toolkit and Report', Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership
Quality initial teacher education review (2022)
“ Graduates need more support to be better prepared in key areas of classroom readiness.
ITE course content should be evidence-based to ensure high-quality teacher preparation.
A greater focus on phonics and phonemic awareness as foundational early reading skills is needed, both in ITE courses and in classroom practice.”
Department of Education, Skills and Employment. (2022). Next steps: report of the quality initial teacher education review, Department of Education, Skills and Employment.
https://www.dese.gov.au/quality-initial-teacher-education-review/resources/next-stepsreport-quality-initial-teacher-education-review
Excellence in teaching and learning RESEARCH evidence base (2020)
“The contemporary literature recognises that excellence in teaching and learning, driven by collaboration within and beyond the school, is the cornerstone of school improvement. Consistent and high-quality classroom teaching delivers dramatic improvements in student learning. While principals establish the preconditions for effective learning, it is classroom teachers who make it happen. The primary responsibility of leadership is to establish a culture where teachers are continually improving their instructional effectiveness to enhance student outcomes.”
Excellence in teaching and learning RESEARCH evidence base. Victoria State Government. https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/teachers/management/FISO%20Evidence%20Base/Excellence%20in%20teaching%20and%20learning%20evidence%20base.docx
The Importance of Evidence-Based Practice in Education 2023
“Evidence-based practice in education is important because it promotes a culture of continuous improvement for both the teacher and the student. Evidence-based education is continually evolving and refining based on new research and data, which often encourages teachers to continually evaluate and fine-tune their teaching strategies. As students see teachers go through the process of evaluation and adjustment, they see good examples of flexibility and growth mindset in action.
Evidence-based teaching has been found to have a positive impact on student achievement in many ways. It increases engagement, provides better retention and transfer of knowledge, improves overall academic performance, and even enhances social-emotional development as well. With all of these impacts combined, evidence-based practices actually have more improved long-term outcomes than traditional practices.
When school leaders implement more evidence-based teaching into their system, educators can help ensure students are receiving high-quality instruction. School improvement leads to student improvement. As teachers strive to help students reach their full potential, schools may also see increases in high school graduation rates, higher college enrollment, and better career outcomes.
The Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities stated, “The National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy has pointed to, and urged us to follow, a direction similar to that taken recently in Great Britain and the USA toward evidence-based practice.” The advantages of evidence-based methods are being recognized globally, which points to further evidence of its importance in each and every classroom.”
Voyager Sopris Learning. What Are Evidence-Based Practices in Education? 2023
Evidence-based teaching practices (2022)
“The quality of teaching delivered to students is the most impactful factor within an education setting which can improve student outcomes, particularly for those who are most marginalised and disadvantaged. As a profession, teachers dedicate their lives and careers to trying to improve outcomes for their students, including in challenging environments where numerous factors that impact achievement are outside of the control of a teacher or school. Many teachers rely on intuitive expertise gained from years of arduous trial and error, ongoing on-the-job professional learning, and engagement with successful and accomplished colleagues to find the most effective and successful practices, often encountering inconsistent or contradictory advice in this process. The time expended upskilling on fundamental knowledge on-the-job could be more effectively used to further enhance expertise if these foundations were consistently taught through ITE programs. Evidence-based practices in education are practices backed up by research evidence. This means there is broad consensus from rigorously conducted evaluations that they work in many cases across various contexts, for different subgroups of students and various locations. Additionally, there is extensive rigorous research on approaches to teaching subject-specific content, such as reading and numeracy, that can complement generic evidence-based pedagogical approaches. Greater gains in positive student outcomes and a significant reduction in teacher workload could be achieved if teachers were armed with a knowledge and understanding of what works best and why. This knowledge should be built up from core foundational content delivered first through ITE, then tried and tested during professional experience, and built on coherently through ongoing professional learning and practice.”
Evidence-based teaching practices. Australian Education Research Organisation (2022)
10 Evidence-based instructional strategies for the classroom (2024)
“Evidence-based instructional strategies demonstrate statistically significant effects on improving student learning and performance outcomes. Not only are they inarguably effective based on scientific data, they can be used to evaluate and improve teaching programs, a key element of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.”
Pastor, J. (2024). 10 Evidence-based instructional strategies for the classroom.
https://www.clickvieweducation.com/en-au/blog/teaching-strategies/evidence-based-instructional-strategies
Rolling out evidence-based instruction across the primary years (2025)
In 2021, all our focus was on “the big 6”, so to speak – oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency. And we upskilled staff on that. We took on The Knowledge Gap [by Natalie Wexler] as our mentor text.’
It was also crucial to make direct links with the School Improvement Plan. The overarching goal for 2020-24 was: educators collaborate to design learning that is evidence-informed, utilises high-impact strategies and challenges all learners.
‘We pulled that apart in our annual action plan and made sure that we were targeting evidence-based instruction, firstly with the spelling and reading, and then as we worked with Lorraine and other professionals in that space [we started to see] that it wasn't just explicit instruction that was important in English; we needed to bring that in across our school, in all curriculum areas.’
Boland joined St Mary’s in 2019, just after it had started to use phonics instruction in Foundation. ‘In 2020, Learning Leaders were appointed from F-2 and 3-6, and I was the 3-6 Learning Leader,’ she explains. ‘Along with the Deputy Principal, the Learning Leaders looked at evidence-based instruction across the school.
‘We looked really closely at our data … [which highlighted] teachers were working really hard, doing the best they could, looking for the best instruction for students, but we weren’t seeing that translate to good growth with our results. That's kind of where it began.’
Then COVID hit, and the landscape shifted. The Learning Leaders and Deputy Principal took part in as much professional learning as they could access, including weekly webinars. ‘We pulled together as much good knowledge for ourselves as we could, so that we could start to upskill our teachers in all of those areas.’
This included personal PD with US-based The Writing Revolution, online learning for staff in Lyn Stone’s Reading for Life and Spelling for Life, and a collaboration with Dr Lorraine Hammond. The school started using the DIBELS reading skills assessment to gain a better understanding of the target areas needed to progress student learning and brought in Spelling Mastery from years 3-6.
‘In 2021, all our focus was on “the big 6”, so to speak – oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency. And we upskilled staff on that. We took on The Knowledge Gap [by Natalie Wexler] as our mentor text.’
It was also crucial to make direct links with the School Improvement Plan. The overarching goal for 2020-24 was: educators collaborate to design learning that is evidence-informed, utilises high-impact strategies and challenges all learners.
‘We pulled that apart in our annual action plan and made sure that we were targeting evidence-based instruction, firstly with the spelling and reading, and then as we worked with Lorraine and other professionals in that space [we started to see] that it wasn't just explicit instruction that was important in English; we needed to bring that in across our school, in all curriculum areas.’
From 2022 the focus was on introducing explicit direct instruction across the school. St Mary’s worked with Dataworks in the US to upskill staff. ‘We had to review a lot of our planning documents to reflect that when we were teaching something to someone who was a novice learner, they were actually getting explicit instruction – we were engaging the students regularly, they weren't sitting for long periods of time without responding and showing us what they knew,’ Boland recalls.
‘We were working with teachers in finding out: How effective is your teaching? And that was important for all of us, as a staff. We had to examine our own practice in that way: Am I asking enough of my students regularly? Do I know what 80% of my class knows? Can I move on with my instruction or do I need to re-teach? So, we did a lot of work in that space.
‘A lot of those principles from our explicit direct instruction were from Rosenshine’s work, and the research about cognitive load. That's when we started in 2022 and 2023 to delve into what that meant.’
Earp, J. (2025). Rolling out evidence-based instruction across the primary years. Teacher.
https://www.teachermagazine.com/au_en/articles/rolling-out-evidence-based-instruction-across-the-primary-years
AI Overview
"Teacher organizations and EBP" refers to the role that professional teacher organizations play in promoting and supporting the implementation of Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) within the classroom, which means using teaching methods and strategies that have been proven effective through rigorous research and data analysis to improve student outcomes.
Key points about teacher organizations and EBP:
- Disseminating information:
Teacher organizations often share research findings and best practices based on EBP through publications, conferences, workshops, and online resources, making educators aware of effective teaching strategies.
- Advocacy:
They can advocate for policies and funding that support the adoption and implementation of EBPs within school districts.
- Professional development:
Many teacher organizations provide professional development opportunities focused on EBP, helping teachers learn how to critically evaluate research and incorporate evidence-based strategies into their teaching.
- Collaboration:
By creating platforms for collaboration, teacher organizations can facilitate knowledge sharing and peer support for teachers seeking to implement EBPs in their classrooms.
Examples of how teacher organizations might support EBP:
- Developing EBP-focused curriculum materials:
Providing teachers with evidence-based lesson plans and instructional materials aligned to specific learning goals.
- Conducting research studies:
Partnering with universities to conduct research on the effectiveness of specific teaching practices within their member schools.
- Establishing quality standards:
Setting benchmarks for EBP implementation and providing guidance on how to measure the impact of evidence-based strategies.
AI Overview
“Begin to understand key literacy and numeracy concepts and processes, such as the sounds of language, letter-sound relationships, concepts.”
Australian Government Department of Education [AGDE] (2022). Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (V2.0).
Teacher Education Expert Panel
Building a culturally responsive Australian teaching workforce
“To begin your professional learning, you might like to access the Indigenous cultural responsiveness self-reflection tool as a starting point, then explore the Indigenous cultural responsiveness development continuum and Indigenous cultural responsiveness capability framework for more information.. …
AITSL worked collaboratively and consulted with the profession, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education experts, students, families, and communities to develop a professional learning toolkit. The toolkit provides resources to support the cultural responsiveness of teachers and leaders to enhance their teaching practice.”
AITSL (2022c) 'Building a culturally responsive Australian teaching workforce: Toolkit and Report', Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership.
https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/cultural-responsiveness/building-a-culturally-responsive-australian-teaching-workforce
Key priority areas across initial teacher education (2022)
“Graduates need more support to be better prepared in key areas of classroom readiness.
ITE course content should be evidence-based to ensure high-quality teacher preparation.
A greater focus on phonics and phonemic awareness as foundational early reading skills is needed, both in ITE courses and in classroom practice.)
Report of the Quality Initial Teacher Education Review. Australian Government.
https://www.voced.edu.au/content/ngv:93009
Initial teacher education (ITE)
“Initial teacher education (ITE) aims to ensure that graduate teachers start their teaching career with the necessary knowledge, skills and dispositions to be successful teachers in any Australian school. On 11 March 2021, the Hon Alan Tudge MP delivered a speech which highlighted the importance of ITE and announced a review into ITE. The Review was launched in April 2021, with the announcement of the Terms of Reference and an Expert Panel.
The Review focused on two points: (1) Attracting and selecting high-quality candidates into the teaching profession; and (2) Preparing ITE students to be effective teachers.
Throughout the consultation phase of the Review, the Expert Panel met with a variety of education stakeholders. They heard from teachers, principals, ITE students and people considering a career in teaching and many others through surveys, focus groups, webinars, a workshop and the submissions process. A discussion paper [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 144.317] was released in June 2021, and the consultation phase of the Review concluded in August 2021.
The final report was released on 24 February 2022. It outlines the findings of the Quality Initial Teacher Education Review. The Expert Panel has made recommendations across three key areas:
(1) Attracting high-quality, diverse candidates into initial teacher education;
(2) Ensuring their preparation is evidence-based and practical; and
(3) Supporting early years teachers. In response to the Review, the Australian Government is establishing a new Initial Teacher Education Quality Assessment Expert Panel, which will develop new minimum and excellence threshold standards for ITE courses. The recommendations build on the significant reforms arising from the 2014 review by the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 119.494]”
Paul, L, Louden, W, Elliott, M & Scott, D 2022, Next steps: report of the Quality Initial Teacher Education Review, Department of Education, Skills and Employment, Canberra, viewed 17 Feb 2025.
OK, folks - I hope you enjoyed this fresh document.
This next segment is a broader document, and includes earlier periods.
It’s hardly a revelation to argue that the adoption of evidence-based practice (EBP) in some other professions is far advanced in comparison to its use in education. That’s not to say that the resistance displayed by some teacher organizations towards the adoption of EBP has not been evident in the early stages of its acceptance by those professions, such as medicine and psychology. However, as these principles have been espoused in medicine and psychology since the early nineties, a new generation of practitioners have been exposed to EBP as the normal standard for practice. This has occurred among young practitioners because their training has emphasized the centrality of evidence in competent practice.
In education, unfortunately, there are few signs of this sequence occurring. Most teachers-in-training are not exposed to either the principles of EBP (unless in a dismissive aside) or to the practices that have been shown to be beneficial to student learning, such as the principles of instructional design and effective teaching, explicit phonological instruction, and student management approaches that might be loosely grouped under the behavioural or cognitive-behavioural banner.
In my view, until educational practice includes EBP as a major determinant of practice, then it will continue to be viewed as an immature profession. It is likely that the low status of teachers in many western countries will continue to be the norm unless and until significant change occurs.
The contribution below is an update on a paper I wrote on the topic of EBP for the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties:
Hempenstall, K. (2006). What does evidence-based practice in education mean? Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities, 11(2), 83-92.
What does evidence-based practice in education mean?
Teaching has suffered both as a profession in search of community respect and as a force for improving a nation’s social capital, because of its failure to adopt the results of empirical research as the major determinant of its practice. There are a number of reasons why this has occurred, among them a science-aversive culture endemic among education policymakers and teacher education faculties. There are signs that major shifts are occurring. There have been strong moves in Great Britain and the USA towards evidence-based practice in education in recent years. Indeed, the movement is likely to be further advanced by the recent edict from the US government’s Office of Management and Budget (Zient, 2012) that requests the entire Executive Branch to use every available means to promote the use of rigorous evidence in decision-making, program administration, and planning”. Evidence-based practice has influenced many professions in recent years. A simple Google search produces over 73,000,000 hits. Among them, in varying degrees of implementation, are professions as diverse as agriculture, speech pathology, occupational therapy, transport, library and information practice, management, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, and health care.
Several problems do require attention. The generally low quality of much educational research in the past has made the process of evaluating the evidence difficult, particularly for those teachers who have not the training to discriminate sound from unsound research designs. Teacher training itself has not empowered teachers with the capacity and motivation to explore how evidence could enhance their effectiveness. Until teachers become more skilled at doing so, it was hoped that bodies such as the What Works Clearing House could perform the sifting process to simplify judgements on what practices have been demonstrated to be effective. However, the strong criteria usually employed in this process have unearthed very few adequately-designed studies from which to make these judgements. There have also been other issues that have made this resource less helpful as a readily accessible and trustworthy site.
Teachers are coming under increasing media fire lately: Too many students are failing. Current teachers are not sufficiently well trained. Our brightest young people are not entering the teaching profession. What does that imply about those who are teachers? Are current teachers inadequate to the task entrusted to them? A nation’s future is dependent upon the next generation of students. So, how should we respond as a nation?
Education has a history of regularly adopting new ideas, but it has done so without the wide-scale assessment and scientific research that is necessary to distinguish effective from ineffective reforms. “More typically, someone comes across an idea she or he likes and urges its adoption… often the changes proposed are both single and simple – more testing of students, loosening certification requirements for teachers, or a particular school improvement model” (Levin, p.740).
“Most management decisions are not based on the best available evidence. Instead, practitioners often prefer to make decisions rooted solely in their personal experience. However, personal judgment alone is not a very reliable source of evidence because it is highly susceptible to systematic errors – cognitive and information-processing limits make us prone to biases that have negative effects on the quality of the decisions we make.” (Barends, Rousseau, & Briner, 2014, p.8)
This absence of a scientific perspective has precluded systematic improvement in the education system, and it has impeded growth in the teaching profession for a long time (Carnine, 1995a; Hempenstall, 1996; Marshall, 1993; Stone, 1996). Years ago in Australia, Maggs and White (1982) wrote despairingly "Few professionals are more steeped in mythology and less open to empirical findings than are teachers" (p. 131).
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