IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/edfpol/v7y2012i2p107-123.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Value of Experiments in Education

Author

Listed:
  • Grover J. Whitehurst

    (Brookings Institution)

Abstract

One of the major story lines of the growth of civilization is the advance of the experiment. From the food we eat to the diseases we conquer to our understanding of how we think and behave, we have profited enormously from an approach that marries our models of the world with tests of their validity through systematic variation to determine cause and effect. These same tools of thought and action are no less critical to the advance of education than to medicine, agriculture, psychology, or transportation. There has been impressive growth in the use of experimental methods in education over the past decade. As a result, much more is known today about what works and what does not. Future progress will be enhanced by research that better explicates process: linking trials to administrative data; serving the interest of local and state officials in examining the impact of their policies and practices; better preservice training for education practitioners in the logic and value of rigorous research; and more generous federal funding for the research enterprise. © 2012 Association for Education Finance and Policy

Suggested Citation

  • Grover J. Whitehurst, 2012. "The Value of Experiments in Education," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 7(2), pages 107-123, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:7:y:2012:i:2:p:107-123
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/EDFP_a_00058
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    education; experimental methods;

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:7:y:2012:i:2:p:107-123. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.