The largest educational experiment run found explicit, structured instruction outperforming discovery-based models on basic skills and, unexpectedly, on self-esteem.
Follow Through compared instructional models across sites over years at a scale never repeated. Direct Instruction came out ahead on the measured outcomes including affective ones. The result was disputed methodologically and largely not adopted, so the episode is cited as often for what happened to the evidence as for the evidence.
In practice
- A finding that contradicts a profession's prevailing theory is examined far more closely than one that confirms it.
- An evaluation whose result nobody wanted is answered with methodological objections that were available before the result.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation offered by its proponents is that basic skills are best built by explicit sequenced instruction with immediate correction, and that discovery methods leave gaps that compound.
- In its favour
- It remains the largest educational experiment ever run, it measured affective as well as academic outcomes, and the Direct Instruction result has been replicated in later trials of structured programmes.
- Against it
- The evaluation has been contested on design, model fidelity and site selection, sponsors implemented their models unevenly, and its findings had almost no effect on practice, which is itself a finding about how evidence is used in education.
- Standing
- The evaluation has been contested on design, model fidelity and site selection, and its findings had little effect on practice, which is itself the more interesting result.
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- What works in learning, and what schools can and cannot change