Meeting Sixteen (15th January 2013): Randomised Controlled Trials ...

Happy New?Year!

It?s been 6 months since our last meet?ing. Both @Alby and @AlomShaha have been unavail?able to run the club over the lat?ter half of 2012 and the autumn school term is tra?di?tion?ally a long and stress?ful term so, despite a few false starts, we?ve not been able to get things up and run?ning again. Until?now.

The first meet?ing of 2013 (15th Jan?u?ary at 7:30pm)?is inspired by the doc?u?men?tary on Radio 4 last week, where Ben Goldacre dis?cusses using evi?dence to inform pol?icy, con?cen?trat?ing on how suit?able ran?domised con?trolled tri?als (RCTs) might be when used in as evi?dence for social poli?cies in areas such as crime and edu?ca?tion. This pro?gramme can be down?loaded before Fri?day 11th Jan?u?ary from here http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r4choice. It?s not pos?si?ble for us to dis?trib?ute this pod?cast after this time as it con?tra?venes BBC pol?icy so down?load it as soon as possible.

There are some use?ful papers we could dis?cuss how?ever we suf?fer from the usual prob?lems ?i.e.: a?lack of open access to research papers. So for this meet?ing, we will look at the paper writ?ten for the Cab?i?net Office by Dr Ben Goldacre, Pro?fes?sor David Torg?er?son et?al:

Test, Learn, Adapt: Devel?op?ing Pub?lic Pol?icy with Ran?domised Con?trolled Trials.

Haynes L., Ser?vice, O., Goldacre, B., Torg?er?son D. (2012). Test, Learn, Adapt: Devel?op?ing Pub?lic Pol?icy with Ran?domised Con?trolled Tri?als. Cab?i?net Office Behav?ioural
Insights Team
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/test-learn-adapt-developing-public-policy-randomised-controlled-trials [down?load?.pdf]

The paper doesn?t con?cen?trate exclu?sively on RCTs in edu?ca?tional research, but there are some exam?ples within that do sug?gest that RCTs should be used to form edu?ca?tion policy.

To com?ple?ment the paper here are some other open ref?er?ence mate?ri?als that are available:

Ques?tions to dis?cuss dur?ing the meet?ing?are :

1. How well would the meth?ods described in the paper work in your school? Would you con?sider run?ning or tak?ing part in a ran?domised con?trol trial in your school? Why or why not?
2. What con?cerns do you have with the eth?i?cal con?sid?er?a?tions of using RCTs in edu?ca?tional research?
3. Do you agree with Ben?s asser?tion (in the doc?u?men?tary) that RCTs pro?vide bet?ter evi?dence (?the gold stan?dard?) than other meth?ods of research for social sci?ences.
4. Which edu?ca?tional inter?ven?tion would you like to see more evi?dence for, in the form of RCTs (or other methodology)?

The meet?ing is Tues?day, 15th Jan?u?ary 2013 at 7:30pm UTC, to be mod?er?ated by @A_Weatherall. Remem?ber to use the hash?tag #sciteachjc dur?ing the discussion.

Source: http://science.teachingjournalclub.org/2013/01/meeting-sixteen-15th-january-2013-randomised-controlled-trials-in-educational-research/

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