Teaching · For Teachers

“Evidence-based” is a claim. Check the study.

Pick the design and check six conditions against the study report. The checklist names the ESSA tier the study could support and what keeps it from the next one.

Review a studyWhat you get
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The study review

One review per study. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · For Teachers$5 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
The highest ESSA tier the study could support, the conditions it misses, and the effect size in context.
Who it is for
Teacher leaders, principals, district evaluators and grant writers choosing or justifying programs.
Format
Browser form. One saved review per study; printed for a team or grant file, or as a blank checklist; CSV; export and import a file.
Access
$5 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the For Teachers toolkit ($79) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The For Teachers space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
four steps of evidence
Drawn for this page. ESSA tiers describe how sure a study lets you be, not how good a program feels.

How to use it

  1. Find the study the vendor or report cites.
  2. Choose its design.
  3. Check each condition against the full report, not the summary.
  4. Look the program up in the What Works Clearinghouse too.
  5. Repeat for each study and keep the strongest.

Review a study

How the tiers work

The four tiers

ESSA defines strong (a well-implemented experimental study), moderate (quasi-experimental), promising (correlational with statistical controls) and demonstrates a rationale. The Department’s guidance adds, for strong and moderate, a large sample (350 or more) in more than one site, overlapping your population or setting.

Effect sizes

Effects in education studies are usually small by laboratory standards. Compare an effect with others on similar outcomes and students, and look at cost.

What this is not

A What Works Clearinghouse review.

Sources

  1. Every Student Succeeds Act, Section 8101(21): definition of evidence-based.
  2. U.S. Department of Education (2016, updated 2023). Non-Regulatory Guidance: Using Evidence to Strengthen Education Investments.
  3. What Works Clearinghouse (2022). Procedures and Standards Handbook, Version 5.0. Institute of Education Sciences.
  4. Kraft, M. A. (2020). Interpreting effect sizes of education interventions. Educational Researcher, 49(4), 241–253.

The example study and figures are made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.