Education and the Replication Crises: A Clear and Present Danger

We are fond of niche words and phrases in Education. Differentiation,student-centered learning,individualized instruction, learning styles, and the one that sends shivers down the spines of many teachers, data-driven decision making. But there are hard questions that we either do not bother asking, or gloss over when asked. What do we mean by differentiation? Do learning styles matter, and if so, to what degree? Is individualized instruction possible, and if so, why bother having a curriculum? What data are we looking at, and what percentage of our time is taken up by crunching these numbers rather than preparing for a quality lesson? Whether we want to admit or not, education is vulnerable to the replication crisis, a phenomenon which casts doubt upon the inability to replicate experimental findings.

This is particularly acute in the area of social sciences, the domain from which education often draws its data, and more importantly, its conclusions. As Shravan Vasishth, a professor of psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics at the Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Germany points out, “…interpreting such data requires statistical inference, and this is where experimental science has always struggled, especially in medicine and the humanities.” In fact, according to Matthew Makel, a gifted-education research specialist at Duke University, and Jonathan Plucker, a professor of educational psychology and cognitive science at Indiana University, a scant 0.13 percent of education articles published in the field’s top 100 journals are replications of studies. Let that sink in for a moment. We are basing our pedagogical decisions, which directly approximately 4 million teachers and more than 50 million students, on unproven ideas. If this weakness were applied to the design and construction of new bridges, disaster would be the end result! 

 And yet, year after year, school systems cling to unproven, specious research studies as if they were the holy grail of positive change. As educator and researcher Timothy Shanahan states, “We tend to chase fads. Instead of building on past reforms and improvements we instead ride the pendulum back and forth.” 

But perhaps the answer is not found directly in the field of education. Jim Collins, renowned business consultant and best-selling author of the book Good to Great warns us that the key to growth and success is not always something shiny and new, but rather a combination of "simplicity and diligence" applied in a consistent, unrelenting manner. Drawing from Collins’ work and the seminal research of education expert Michael Fullan and other heavy hitters in the fields of education and psychology, author and consultant Mike Schmoker distills educational success into three essential, uncompromising words: simplicity, clarity, and priority. Schmoker uses a combination of research, logic, and common sense to prove that without these three principles of design and action, schools are fated to make the same unproductive mistakes over and over again. When things are not simple enough that they are not actually practical and “doable,” no one should be surprised when they don’t materialize, warns Schmoker. 

In a parallel fashion, when goals, systems, and methodologies are lack clarity, confusion abounds, leading to repeated unproductive struggle and negativity. And, when schools fail to set realistic priorities and instead try to do everything well, the end result is frustration, and ultimately failure. As the old adage goes, “when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.” Isn’t it time that education recognizes they are not immune to the replication crisis? Isn’t it time to honor common sense via the principles of simplicity, clarity, and priority? These are questions that can no longer be avoided.