Teach Effectively!

Each article in the current issue of Exceptional Children [2005; 71(2)] addresses “quality indicators” for research. As the editor of the journal and the individuals who contributed to it note, there are multiple ways to study effectiveness. In this special issue, they approach the topic in an inclusive manner, fitting for special education, I suppose. The articles’ topics range from experimental to qualitative research.

I’ll look forward to reading the articles closely. The authors know their individual areas well and will, I am sure, provide trustworthy suggestions about what features of, for example, qualitative studies can serve as benchmarks for judging the quality of those studies.

I’ll also be interested in the extent to which these authors contend that each of the various methods can permit one to make definitive statements about effectiveness. In the opening essay, Sam Odom and colleagues refer to the emphasis on randomized clinical trials in medicine and allied disciplines, an emphasis that some of my colleagues criticize. One of the arguments leveled at RTC and other sanctioned methods–Reading First referred to “scientifically based reading research” (for all its redundancy)–is that the evidence is not absolute, categorical, and unequivocal. Therefore, we shouldn’t follow it.

If no one method can permit one to make absolutely definitive statements, does that mean that all methods offer equally ambiguous evidence? Certainly I wouldn’t agree with that assessment. I’ll see how these articles handle that issue. I’m hoping that readers won’t be lead to confuse the quality of research with the implications for practice. It’s easy to see how we might have very high-quality studies that have little meaning for how to teach effectively, regardless of the research tradition from which they come.