Evidence-based research in practice

Recent calls for education research to adopt scientific principles have created much debate in the education research community. Although there is a general consensus on the value of evidence-based research to guide educational programs and policies, researchers are posed with the challenge of conducting research, which is regarded as rigorous and valid, in terms of a scientific inquiry. This paper reports on how these issues may influence research that is intentionally underpinned by evidence-based research methodology. Elements of a research project to investigate students’ development of statistical thinking and reasoning in an ICT environment provide examples, which illustrate how evidence-based research can shape research practice. This is followed by a description of a framework for the evaluation of data-analysis software. The framework was based on theoretical frameworks from the literature on statistics education to strengthen the internal validity of the research. It potentially provides the opportunity to gather reliable and meaningful evidence, and demonstrates the practical application of empirical methods to explore and explain the complexity of real life situations