Informing Better Trial Design: A Technical Comment on Lortie-Forgues and Inglis (2019). (May 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sims, Sam
• Is Part Of: Educational researcher. Volume 49:Number 4(2020)
• Page Start: 289
• Page End: 290
• Publication Date: 2020-05
• Subjects: educational policy -- evaluation -- experimental design -- meta-analysis -- program evaluation; Education -- Periodicals; Education -- United States -- Periodicals; Education -- Research -- Periodicals; Education -- Research -- Methodology -- Periodicals; 370.72
• DOI: 10.3102/0013189X19867931
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-189X

Abstract

Lortie-Forgues and Inglis (2019) convincingly demonstrate that 40% of rigorous, large-scale education trials are uninformative about impact. However, they and others dismiss the value of larger trials for solving this problem, based on a miscalculation. Contrary to this, I argue that making trials larger is a feasible and affordable way of making them more informative.