Evaluation: Why, what and how

In exploring what constitutes effective teaching and learning in classrooms and schools, this article centres around the important role of evaluation in evidence-based practice as a means of establishing 'what works'. Professor Rob Coe, Director of the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring, Durham University, looks at ways of establishing high quality, local strategies to evaluate interventions to ensure that educators have a clear evidence on the efficacy of their innovative practices. Coe argues that three key questions need to be addressed in designing good evaluation: What exactly are you evaluating? What counts as success? What would have happened otherwise? Coe cites successful examples of teachers using effective evaluation strategies to inform better decision-making about what has worked for them, how to improve what may be capable of being made to work, and what to stop doing. He concludes that strong, real-time, local evaluation may offer the best route for converting evidence