Evidence-based practice, or EBP, has become a widely used phrase in education, popularised through government documents, independent think tanks, and the mainstream press. But what counts as evidence? And who gets to decide? And what are the implications for music education? 

(Biesta, 2007, p. 3, 2010, p. 494; Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, 2020, p. 4; Fuller, 2022, p. 3; Hargreaves, 1999, p. 245)

[Shown on screen - a government website saying “Evidence-based practices are those practices that are supported by research evidence. The practice has been the subject of academic research and there is a broad consensus within the research community that it works.]

(Australian Education Research Organisation1, 2023) 

This definition is typical of the kinds of government, board of education websites, and documents that promote the importance of using evidence from research and the notion that the evidence-based practice process is beneficial and it works. The impression given by governments and the popular press is that the very practices shown to work by the evidence are already settled, and teachers just need to get on with it. So, how can this be contentious? And why aren't we getting on with it?

Robert Slavin's 2002 Distinguished Lecture, "Evidence-Based Education Policies: Transforming Educational Practice and Research," was the first strongly pro-EBP text in education research that aligned with governmental policy. Slavin pointed to the successful use of randomized controlled trials in medicine to identify "what works best," explaining that they could prove outcomes from teaching interventions.

(Slavin, 2002)

In his influential "Visible Learning" series of books, John Hattie published lists of actions that teachers should prioritise, which have been replicated in EBP government policy internationally. Based on 800 meta-analyses, Hattie called his approach an "evidence-based accountability model." However, he has since distanced himself from the EBP movement.

(Hattie, 2005, p. 15) (Hattie, 2012, 2013; Hattie & Yates, 2014) (Hattie, 2013, p. 3) (Hattie, 2005, p. 19) (Knudsen, 2017, p. 256)

A 1996 presentation given in England by David Hargreaves ignited a debate that has been raging for a quarter of a century. He said, "Teaching is not, at present, a research-based profession. I have no doubt that, if it were, teaching would be more effective and more satisfying." 

(Hammersley, 2005; Hargreaves, 1996).

In his 2001 riposte, Elliott pointed to the problems with Hargreaves' EBP model, especially its formulaic approach to teaching and learning.

European education researchers Gert Biesta and Pasi Sahlberg have also railed against EBP in education. Biesta questions the suitability of EBP as practiced in medicine and agriculture for education, noting that the dynamics of education are fundamentally different from, say, potato growing or chemistry. Sahlberg coined the term Global Education Reform Movement, or GERM. He says that GERM is based on policy-driven evidence, that is, evidence carefully selected to support the policy, as opposed to evidence-based decision-making.

(Biesta, 2010, p. 497; Sahlberg, 2006, 2023)

But who's to say that what works best, works best for music education? Fuller found that the evidence base suggested replacing high expectations with culturally relevant pedagogy and mixed expectations, and replacing explicit teaching with explicit learning.

(Fuller, 2023)

I went back to the medical model of EBP to see whether there were clues there for a new middle road for music education. I started with a groundbreaking paper by David Sackett in 1996. The paper defines the term evidence-based medicine as "the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients."

(Sackett, 1996, p. 71)

This is similar to the government and media definitions of EBP in education. But Sackett continued, "The practice of evidence-based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research." He said, "Without clinical expertise, practice risks becoming tyrannised by evidence. External clinical evidence can inform but can never replace individual clinical expertise." Is it possible that music education could rise up against the tyranny of evidence by adopting and adapting Sackett's definition of EBP?

We think it's time for the kind of rigour that has been applied to medical models of EBP to be applied in education. We're not dogmatic about our new model and welcome criticism and testing through research and philosophy. Elliot and Silverman define educative teaching and learning as that which "puts the care, growth, and positive transformation of students as persons at the centre of every music teaching-learning situation."

(Elliott & Silverman, 2015, p. 18)

Jenlink and Jenlink demonstrate that educative teaching and learning is more congruent with the medical EBP models, especially Hoffman's Four Circles model, because it also promotes the voices of teachers and students in making decisions about what happens in their classroom. Our model is an adaptation of Hoffman's model. It introduces the concept of pedagogical reasoning from the medical EBP concept of clinical reasoning to capture the process by which music teachers make decisions with their students about what is musically and educationally valuable. These values then inform planning for the kinds of educative teaching and learning activities and experiences that draw on the values, needs, and circumstances of each student, the teacher's musical and educational expertise, information from the classroom context, and research evidence.

(Hoffman, 2013; Jenlink & Jenlink, 2019)

We have now begun a series of research studies which we hope to bring together as a book, drawing out EBP in music education. We're inviting music teaching practitioners and other researchers to join us to test and critique the model and to strengthen it as a consistent model for education more broadly.

If you're interested in the idea of making EBP in education as consistent and scholarly as it is in medicine, we'd love you to try out the EEBP model. And if we find that it works in music education, perhaps it will provide a more robust model of EBP for all education in the 21st century.