- Random Control Trials are possibly part of the rich blend of instruments we can use in education reseach. There are dilemmas about when it is appropriate to use them, for example establishing the impact of two different science schemes is one thing, but the concept of using a trial where one group get something that probably will make an improvement and one don’t is troubling. Because it effectively says that it’s ok to penalise one group of kids for the greater good of “proving” it works.
- John Tomsett’s concept of “educated instincts” is valid and means that if on the balance of probablities an intervention is likely to have an impact, then there would have to be a compelling business case to justify the perpetration of an RCT upon the children.
- Stephen Lockyer has a very valid point that the provenance of research matters and that consumers of research need the critical disposition to be able to interrogate it.
- There needs to be a compelling case for an RCT delivering more valid data than comparison of against past performance and known trends about children’s progress.
- The act of researching must be valued in itself. The output is one thing, but the impact on practice of taking on the disposition of a researcher has a significant impact on its own, because of the rigour it imposes on the partcipants.
- No-one has yet discussed the right to withdraw. Is it morally and ethically acceptable to subject a child to a controlled trial if they do not wish to partake and how will schools manage the logistics of that?
- Frank Furedi has a point: that the rights and wrongs of RCT are negligible in the grand tapestry of teaching and learning, when we know that if we have better teachers, loving their subjects, you get better outcomes. He also made an interesting point that RCT are about interventions, which suggests we subscribe to the deficit model of kids who come to school to be fixed. He also made the point that aligned with Ben Goldacre’s point on the need for a mix of Qualitative and Quantitative methods.
I’ve had a great day.