What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is a digital library of
educational research
Educational research refers to the systematic collection and analysis of data related to the field of education. Research may involve a variety of methods and various aspects of education including student learning, teaching methods, teacher tra ...
which focuses on
evidence-based education
Evidence-based education (EBE) is the principle that education practices should be based on the best available scientific evidence, rather than tradition, personal judgement, or other influences. Evidence-based education is related to evidence-base ...
.
A 2006 report described that many researchers perceived the WWC to be passive cataloger of available research.
In contrast to that view, the paper described a series of opinionated subjective decisions which the WWC made about providing some educational research and declining to index another sort.
WWC was established in 2002 as a project of the
Institute of Education Sciences
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the independent, non-partisan statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education. IES' stated mission is to provide scientific evidence on which to ground education practice ...
.
The WWC recommendations for interpreting the results of single-case educational studies is the subject of discussion.
The WWC has systems for evaluating the effectiveness of educational research in general and curricula.
Various researchers use WWC itself as the platform through which they access other research.
Some of the concerns expressed about WWC are that it appears to have difficulty keeping up with the research so it may not be current; and when a program is not listed on their database, it may be that it did not meet their criteria or they have not yet reviewed it, but you don't know which. In addition ''Straight Talk on Evidence'', authored by the
Arnold Ventures LLC’ Evidence-Based Policy team , on January 16, 2018 expressed concerns about the validity of the ratings provided by WWC. It says WWC in some cases reported a "preliminary outcome when high-quality RCTs found no significant effects on more important and final educational outcomes".
References
Further reading
Criticisms of What Works Clearinghouseby National Institute of Direct Instruction
External links
*{{official website, https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/
Educational research
Bibliographic databases and indexes
Educational organizations based in the United States
Government-owned websites of the United States
Discipline-oriented digital libraries