Revisiting the role of values in evidence-based education
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11951365 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kathryn E Joyce (0000-0003-4535-8471, Center for Ethics and Human Values, The Ohio University , 350 University Hall, 230 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 853-868 |
| Publication date | 2024-02-28 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Philosophy of Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0309-8249 • E-ISSN: 1467-9752 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jopedu/qhae022 |
| OpenAlex | W4392241761 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 24 |
Evidence-based practice in education involves basing decisions about what to do on evidence about the relative effectiveness of available interventions (e.g. programmes, products, practices). This article considers two influential critiques of evidence-based education (EBE) pertaining to its treatment of values. The ‘general critique’ condemns EBE for excluding values from decisions about what to do in education. The ‘specific critique’ condemns EBE for relying on a deterministic view of causality in education which disregards the complex, value-laden nature of educational contexts. I argue that virtually all versions of EBE escape the general critique, including the dominant intervention-centred approach that relies on experimental research to discover ‘what works’, because the predictions EBE aims to support are only one premise in a broader normative argument. Further, intervention-centred EBE can avoid much of the specific values-based critique because it is consistent with a probabilistic, rather than deterministic, understanding of causality. However, I argue that only a context-centred approach to EBE that relies on evidence about the specific target setting from local sources in addition to evidence from theory and mixed methods research can fully address the specific critique by accommodating critics’ descriptive claims about the nature of educational contexts
Economic growth · Economics · Epistemology · Higher education · Pedagogy · Philosophy of education · Sociology · Counseling Practices and Supervision · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Psychology · Values and Moral Education · Philosophy
Evidence-Based Policy
The Myth of Research-Based Policy & Practice
Educational Goods
Why “What Works” Won’t Work
Ends, principles, and causal explanation in educational justice
Why ‘What Works’ Still Won’t Work
Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice
Causal Explanation, Qualitative Research, and Scientific Inquiry in Education
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |