The Teaching & Learning Toolkit
The Teaching & Learning Toolkit is an accessible summary of educational research. The Toolkit aims to:
- Support evidence-informed decision-making in Australian schools;
- Provide guidance for principals, teachers and schools on how to use their resources to improve educational outcomes for their students, particularly those from low-income families;
- Act as an introduction to educational research.
The Toolkit was developed by two charities based in the UK, the Education Endowment Foundation and the Sutton Trust, in collaboration with academics at Durham University. In 2015, the Australian Teaching & Learning Toolkit was launched, with support from the Department for Education and Training in Victoria, Social Ventures Australia and a number of other organisations around the country.
The Toolkit synthesises international and Australian research, and presents a wide range of educational interventions, summarised in terms of the average impact on attainment, the strength of the evidence supporting them, and the cost. The Toolkit is a live resource that will be updated regularly as new studies are published in Australia or overseas.
Read more about the Teaching & Learning Toolkit and how you can use it (276 KB, PDF).
'I just wanted to thank you, once again, for your excellent workshop around the Evidence for Learning Toolkit. In my role, I spend a great deal of time collecting, reading and unpacking research around teaching practice and approaches with our teachers. The Toolkit is neat, concise and easy to use. It will save me countless hours in the way it lights the path directly to the most relevant and reliable research.' - Frances Roberts,Head of Curriculum, Bounty Boulevard State School after attending a workshop by Dr Tanya Vaughan.
Months' impact
Months' impact is estimated in terms of the additional months' progress you can expect students to make as a result of an approach being used in school, taking average student progress over a year as a benchmark.
For example, the ‘feedback’ strand in the Toolkit shows that improving the quality of feedback provided to students has an average impact of eight months. This means that students in a class where high quality feedback is provided can be expected to make, on average, eight months more progress over the course of a year compared to another class of students who are performing at the same level at the start of the year.
These impact estimations are based on ‘effect sizes’ reported in comparative data (see table below). Effect sizes are quantitative measures of the impact of different approaches on learning. The Toolkit prioritises effect sizes derived from systematic reviews of research and quantitative syntheses of data such as meta-analyses of experimental studies. To be included in the analysis an approach needs to have some quantifiable evidence base for comparison.
Most approaches included in the Toolkit tend to have very similar average impacts on students with different characteristics. However, where the research summarised suggests that an approach has a different average impact on the learning of students from disadvantaged backgrounds compared to the learning of their peers, the Toolkit’s ‘headline’ average impact figure refers to the former.
Months impact |
Effective size from ... |
... to |
Description |
0 |
-0.01 |
0.01 |
Very low or no effect |
1 |
0.02 |
0.09 |
Low |
2 |
0.10 |
0.18 |
Low |
3 |
0.19 |
0.26 |
Moderate |
4 |
0.27 |
0.35 |
Moderate |
5 |
0.36 |
0.44 |
Moderate |
6 |
0.45 |
0.52 |
High |
7 |
0.53 |
0.61 |
High |
8 |
0.62 |
0.69 |
High |
9 |
0.70 |
0.78 |
Very high |
10 |
0.79 |
0.87 |
Very high |
11 |
0.88 |
0.95 |
Very high |
12 |
0.96 |
>1.0 |
Very high |
Cost
Cost estimations are based on the approximate cost of implementing an approach in a class of 25 students. Cost estimates commonly include the cost of additional resources, and the cost of training or professional development if required.
Cost |
Description |
$ |
Very low: up to about $4,000 per year per class of 25 students, or less than $160 per student per year. |
$$ |
Low: $4,001 to $8,000 per year per class of 25 students, or up to about $320 per student per year. |
$$$ |
Moderate: $8,001 to $30,000 per year per class of 25 students, or up to about $1,200 per student per year. |
$$$$ |
High: $30,001 to $50,000 per year per class of 25 students, or up to $2,000 per student per year. |
$$$$$ |
Very high: over $50,000 per year per class of 25 students, or over $2,000 per student per year. |
Evidence security
Evidence security ratings are based on: the quantity of evidence available (i.e. the number of systematic reviews or meta-analyses and the number of primary studies which they synthesise); the methodological quality of the available evidence; and the reliability or consistency of impact estimates across the reviews and meta-analyses that have been synthesised.
Rating |
Description |
Very limited |
Quantitative evidence of impact from single studies, but with effect size data reported or calculable. No systematic reviews with quantitative data or meta-analyses located. |
Limited |
At least one meta-analysis or systematic review with quantitative evidence of impact on achievement or cognitive or curriculum outcome measures. |
Moderate |
Two or more rigorous meta-analyses of experimental studies of school age students with cognitive or curriculum outcome measures. |
Extensive |
Three or more meta-analyses from well-controlled experiments mainly undertaken in schools using student achievement data with some exploration of causes of any identified heterogeneity. |
Very extensive |
Consistent high quality evidence from at least five robust and recent meta-analyses where the majority of the included studies have good ecological validity and where the outcome measures include curriculum measures or standardised tests in school subject areas. |
The Toolkit demo
This video is a demonstration about how to use the Teaching & Learning Toolkit.