Taming Randomized Controlled Trials in Education: Exploring Key Claims, Issues and Debates

While acknowledging that randomized controlled trials do have some place in education, the book nevertheless argues that this place should be limited. Drawing together all arguments for and against RCTs in a comprehensive and easily accessible single volume, the book also adds new perspectives and insights to the conversation; crucially, the book considers the limits of their usefulness and applicability in education, raising a range of largely unexplored concerns about their use. Chapters include discussions on:

• The impact of complexity theory and chaos theory.
• Design issues and sampling in randomized controlled trials.
• Learning from clinical trials.
• Data analysis in randomized controlled trials.
• Reporting, evaluating and generalizing from randomized controlled trials.

Considering key issues in understanding and interrogating research evidence, this book is ideal reading for all students on Research Methods modules, as well as those interested in undertaking and reviewing research in the field of education.