CEC Calls on Department of Ed to Change Definition of ‘Evidence-Based’ in State Personnel Development Grant Program

Just what constitutes ‘evidence-based practice’ is a widely discussed topic of conversation, particularly among educators who are determining which interventions, instructional strategies, and curricula to use with children and youth with disabilities.  With federal laws mandating their use, educators need guidance when making these determinations. 

That’s where CEC’s evidence-based practice resources come in.

For the last few years, CEC has been working with a group of special education researchers and practitioners to highlight and explain ‘evidence-based practice’ through two special editions of Exceptional Children, CEC’s premiere research journal, and through other initiatives.

In the meantime, CEC has urged the U.S. Department of Education to revise its definition of ‘evidence-based’ as proposed in the IDEA State Personnel Development Grant program.  The proposed definition reads: “Evidence-based refers to practices for which there is strong evidence or moderate evidence of effectiveness.”

 CEC – with the integral input of its members, particularly the Division for Research – has called this definition overly broad and vague. Among CEC’s many concerns is that the proposed definition would do little to improve instructional practice because the language referring to “moderate evidence of effectiveness” undermines the purpose of evidence-based practices, which is intended to set a high bar for practices supported by a trustworthy body of research. 

While CEC’s work to define ‘evidence-based practice’ is still underway, and a more complete definition of evidence-based may emerge, the proposed definition must be strengthened to ensure the spirit of evidences is upheld in its implementation.  CEC proposed to change the definition to:

“Evidence based refers to practices that are supported by a sufficient number of high quality studies that use research designs from which causality can be inferred and that demonstrate meaningful effects on student outcomes.”

CEC’s proposed definition originates from the work of numerous special education researchers, most directly from CEC’s Division for Research whitepaper, Thinking and Communicating Clearly About Evidence-Based Practices in Special Education by Bryan G. Cook and Sara Cothren Cook.

While the debate over defining ‘evidence-based’ promises to continue for some time, take a look at these helpful resources from CEC.   

Read CEC’s Full Response to the State Personnel Development Grant Proposed Priorities and Definitions by clicking here.

Click here to read CEC’s Special Education Research Funding Issue Brief.

Comments

[Laura]

The first thing that has to be done regarding this issue of what constitutes evidence-based" is to agree upon what outcomes are most important. It is much easier to put together a good body of tightly designed research when you are looking at a very narrow range of outcomes in the short term and are able to control for all other variables. An example would be teaching a child a particular skill. A tight body of research is much more difficult to produce when looking at more long-term, global outcomes. For example, does a particular school intervention now lead to the child being better prepared for the workforce in 10 years? Lead to more friendships in high school? Be more independent in adulthood? I would argue that these global outcomes are what we should strive for with our children, and that we need to be careful that 1)the short term goals we set toward these long term outcomes are appropriate and 2)we do not "game" the research to demonstrate tight studies that in fact are missing the point in terms of the long term outcomes we desire for the special needs population. Perhaps we need different standards for "evidence based" depending on whether we are looking at short term, skill-based outcomes (a large body of tightly controlled studies would be appropriate) versus long-term, quality of life outcomes (since tight studies are nearly impossible to produce for these outcomes, interventions should be based more on best practices, family preferences, availability of resources and clinical judgment).

[Dema]

I agree with the above comment by Laura. Also, there are many emerging interventions that come from a research base, but haven't been in existence long enough for significant research on the intervention itself. Things that come to mind are the relationship based/developmental interventions that have origins from the child development/developmental psychology fields, which themselves do have extensive research.