EEF Summary
Evaluation Conclusions
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The British Science Association's CREST Award programme aims to help students build their science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) skills and interest. Students develop their own project ideas and conduct desk-based and practical research with support from an educator (for example, a teacher, club leader, or supervisor). The CREST Discovery, Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards differentiate by number of required hours and age of participating students, with the Silver Award requiring 30+ hours of project work in total.
A key challenge for secondary schools is encouraging students to take an interest in STEM subjects and to pursue courses and future careers in the sciences. The CREST programme promotes engagement by allowing students to investigate a research question, engaging in inquiry-led STEM learning. This independent evaluation, involving 2,810 pupils from 180 schools, builds on the previous evaluations of CREST by undertaking the first randomised controlled trial of the programme.
The study found no evidence that year 9 pupils offered participation in the CREST Silver Award made any additional progress in science attainment, compared to similar pupils that were not offered the programme. This finding has moderate to low security due to the high number of students that dropped out of the trial, and the risk that remaining students may not be representative of the overall student population.
There was no evidence to suggest that the CREST Silver Award improved self-efficacy in science or increased the proportion of students aspiring to a STEM career; however, small positive impacts were found for pupil confidence and attitudes to school. There is some indication that the delivery model of CREST might influence the programme's impact on science attainment. Despite the overall average being zero, exploratory analysis found that pupils participating in CREST outside of class time made two months' additional progress while those that participated during class time made three months less progress than similar pupils in control schools. These results should be treated with caution as the trial was not designed to measure the difference between these groups.
It is important to note that this result does not disprove a link between inquiry-led STEM learning and academic attainment. A small proportion (22-29%) of students successfully submitted their final projects to the British Science Association. The process evaluation indicates that both CREST educators and students found that they had little time to work on CREST alongside other commitments such as preparing for GCSEs. This may be one possible explanation for a lower than expected proportion of final submitted student projects.
The EEF has no plans for a further trial of CREST Silver Award.
Outcome/Group
Impact - the size of the difference between British Science Association: CREST Silver Award – enquiry based learning in science pupils and other pupils help
Security – how confident are we in this result? help
Progress in Science
Months' Progress
Progress in Science (FSM students)
Were the schools in the trial similar to my school?
There were 180 schools involved in the trial
For schools to be eligible, the proportion of FSM-eligible students in the school had to be at least as high as the England average (34%)
Participating schools could not be in special measures
Could I implement this in my school?
The CREST Award programme is flexible: sessions can take place during STEM classes, at lunchtime, as an after-school club, or as a placement outside of school
Students can complete their projects in a wide variety of settings, with different levels of support, and over different lengths of time: a core requirement for CREST Silver is 30 hours of project work in total
Access to the BSA's online bank of project documents is free: teachers decide which project topics students work on (for example, literature reviews, engineering or designing projects, science hypothesis testing, or science communication projects) and can access support via the BSA's online helpdesk
Participant group
Intervention length
The approximate average delivery cost of the CREST Silver Award per student over three years is £17.25. This includes a £10 fee to the BSA per student (a subsidised fee currently available to all British schools participating in CREST). Without this subsidy, the fee for the CREST Silver Award would be higher.
Other costs to schools came from purchasing resources such as materials and equipment, which varied depending on the type of project work undertaken by pupils (for example, some projects required scientific lab experiments for which specific material resources needed to be ordered).
Cost per pupil
Training time per staff member
Evaluation info
Type of trial
Efficacy Trial
Pupils that were offered participation in the CREST Silver Award made, on average, no additional progress in science attainment in comparison to those in the control group, equivalent to zero months of additional progress. This is our best estimate, which has a moderate to low security rating.
There is no evidence to suggest that the CREST Silver Award improved self-efficacy in science or increased the proportion of students aspiring to a STEM career. Small positive impacts were found for pupil confidence and attitudes to school. This is our best estimate.
There is no evidence that participation in CREST Silver impacts science attainment differently for girls and boys.
There is some indication that the delivery model of CREST might influence the programme's impact on science attainment. Exploratory analysis found that pupils participating in CREST outside of class time made two months' additional progress while those that participated during class time made three months less progress than similar pupils in control schools. These results should be treated with caution as the trial was not designed to measure the difference between the groups and the statistical uncertainty around the results is consistent with larger or null impacts in both cases.
The process evaluation indicates that both CREST educators and students found that they had little time to work on CREST alongside other commitments such as preparing for GCSEs. This may be one possible explanation for a low proportion of final submitted student projects.
Updated: 12th December, 2019
Printable project summary
1 MB pdf - EEF-british-science-association-crest-silver-award-enquiry-based-learning-in-sc.pdf
2 MB pdf - CREST_Silver.pdf
Evaluation Protocol (Amended)
447 KB pdf - CREST_trial_protocol_ammended.pdf
Evaluation Protocol
444 KB pdf - Round_10-_CREST_protocol.pdf
Statistical Analysis Plan
639 KB pdf - Round_10_-_CREST_SAP.pdf
Full project description
The CREST Award programme (a whole-school intervention with levels differentiated by number of required hours and age of participating students as Discovery, Bronze, Silver, and Gold) aims to help students build their science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) skills and demonstrate personal achievement through project work. Students develop their own project ideas and conduct desk-based and practical research with support from an educator (for example, a teacher, club leader, or supervisor). The programme is coordinated by the British Science Association (BSA) and 13 regional CREST support organisations promote the award scheme.
In this study, CREST Silver was focused on science projects only and targeted to Year 9 students (13–14-year olds) completing a required 30+ hours of project work in total. Year 9 science teachers supported pupils through their projects, which were submitted online to the BSA for this trial. The intervention was delivered throughout the academic year 2017/2018, with the trial beginning in September 2017 and concluding with post-intervention testing of students in July 2018.
The evaluation comprised an efficacy trial during which Year 9 staff delivered the CREST Silver Award programme across three terms (one academic school year) to 2,810 pupils from 180 schools. The primary outcome of interest for the trial was science attainment, as measured by the raw scores achieved in the Progress Test in Science (PTS), level 14 (GL Assessment). Alongside the impact evaluation, a mixed-methods process study to assess implementation fidelity was carried out. The process study included observations of CREST lessons, interviews with both treatment and control school staff, and a post-intervention teacher survey.
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