John Hattie

What is the nature of evidence that makes a difference to learning?

http://www.acer.edu.au/workshops/documents/HattieSlides.pdf

Identifying what matters

Influences on learning

• Feedback is critical to effective teaching and students learning. ‘Feedback’ includes telling students what they have done well (positive reinforcement), and what they need to do to improve(corrective work, targets etc), but it also includes clarifying goals. This means that giving students assessment criteria for example would be included in ‘feedback’. This may seem odd, but high quality feedback is always given against explicit criteria, and so these would be included in ‘feedback’ experiments.As well as feedback on the task Hattie believes that students can get feedback on the processes they have used to complete the task, and on their ability to self-regulate their own learning. All these have the capacity to increase achievement. Feedback on the ‘self’ such as ‘well done you are good at this’ is not helpful. The feedback must be informative rather than evaluative.


• Classroom behaviour


• Cooperative learning


• Early intervention


• Competitive learning


• Testing.

Ask questions of relative effectiveness. Using effect-sizes in classrooms to underpin the discussion on effectiveness. the importance of learning intentions and success criteria.

Identifying what matters

There have been many studies over the past few years that have asked this question about wherein lies the variance (I have over 600,000 in my own database, Hattie, 1997).

• A major aim is to decompose the variance of the many influences to identify what
  proportion of achievement variance can be attributed to students, the curricula, policy, the
  principal, school climate, the teacher, the various teaching strategies, and the home. If we
  ignore the interaction effects, which are too often minor, then the major sources of
  variance are six- fold.
  
• Students -- They account for about 50% of the variance of achievement. It is what
  students bring to the table that predicts achievement more than any other
  variable. The correlation between ability and achievement is high, so it is
  not surprising that bright students have steeper trajectories of learning than
  their less bright peers. No matter how much we may like to “select” the best
  students into our schools, instead we must teach ALL students. We can add
  achievement value to students but as noted above; we are doing this
  disproportionately such that the bottom 20% is slipping behind their
  international peers.
  
• Home -- This accounts for about 5-10% of the variance, as most variance is already
  accounted for in the student prior achievement effect.
  
• Schools -- These account for about 5-10% of the variance. Schools barely make a
  difference to achievement. The discussion on the attributes of schools – the
  finances, the school size, the class size, the buildings are important as they
  must be there in some form for a school to exist, but that is about it. Given
  NZ schools are well resourced with more uniformity in the minimum
  standards than in most countries, it should be less surprising that in NZ the
  school effects are lower than in many other countries. Another way to note
  the effects of school is to consider two students of equal prior ability, and it
  almost does not matter which school they attend (although Nash, 2000 has
  shown that brighter students may perform higher in the lower decile schools
  at the School Certificate level).
  
• Principals –There influence is not directly on student learning but is more on the climate
  of the school. Principals who create a school with high student
  responsiveness and high expectations rather than bureaucratic control, who
  create a climate of psychological safety to learn, who have clear and high
  expectations, and who create a focus of teacher discussion on student
  learning can have a greater influence.
  
• Peer effects – These account for about 5-10% of the variance. This reflects how we
  under- utilise peers as co-teachers in classrooms. Certainly peers can have a
  positive effect on learning, but the discussion too quickly moves to the
  negative powers such as the recent increase in discussion on bullying
  (which is too real), and on the manner students create reputations around
  almost anything other than pride in learning.
  
• Teachers – They account for about 30% of the variance. It is what teachers know, do,
  and care about which is very powerful in this learning equation. And it is
  the one source of variance that can be enhanced with the greatest potential
  of success.

This is a study based on schools in New Zealand; it says that achievement of students can be attributed to many different factors. Whether it is students themselves, teachers, home, schools, Principals, and Peer effects. All of these can affect the way a student learns and whether they learn effectively. There are many things that Hattie says but, one of the most important is providing the students with feedback. I believe feedback to be the most important thing for students and this can increase there knowledge and learning and whether they learn effectively or not. Feedback not only provides the student with their results, but it also provides them with a rank against others in their class and year and it can clarify the students’ goals in life and school. You should only give the students positive feedback because negative feedback can destroy confidence and self esteem. Even though this study is conducted in New Zealand Schools, it is still widely useful for teachers, schools, and parents in all nations. Whether it be Australia, America, or South Africa they still have the same problems as those in New Zealand. This study can be extremely useful in determining how effectively students learn in any environment and it could be used for further study especially in determining how different students are in certain countries and it gives teachers even further insight into how to teach effectively for students from other cultures and backgrounds in their class and school. It is very difficult for teachers to see how well students are doing and whether they are learning effectively, or how well they are retaining information. Teachers need to test and assess not only their students work but, also how well they interact with each other in group situations. Interaction is necessary in life but, it is also necessary for higher learning. You learn 90% of what you teach someone else. That statement demonstrates that interaction and feedback are necessary for student development and learning effectively.