Today, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published a new report from a study which aimed to develop a new science attainment measure, alongside an independent evaluation of EEF projects.
Development of a Year 5 Science Assessment
This report summarises work commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and co-funded by the Wellcome Trust. The aim was to develop a science assessment suitable to be administered to Year 5 pupils as a meaningful outcome measure in future evaluations
Between November 2019 and May 2021, a team at the University of York compiled candidate questions for the science assessment using questions that had previously appeared on Key Stage 2 (KS2) science SATs sample papers. These were piloted one to one with a small number of pupils, before being refined and subsequently administered to a larger groups of pupils from a range of schools
The assessment of the psychometric properties of the final test version indicated it to be a reliable and valid measure of Year 5 scientific ability
The full report, together with the EEF’s commentary on the findings, is available here.
Review of EEF projects
This report, conducted by Sheffield Hallam University analyses 82 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) commissioned by EEF, and reported by January 2019, to identify patterns related to who and what has been successful when tested. The 82 trials in the review include 79 EEF RCTs published between 2014 and 2018 and three published in January 2019. The review focused only on the studies with highest evidence quality threshold.
This report contributes significant new knowledge by conducting quantitative meta-analyses across a larger number of trials than previous reviews and extending the range of variables within the analyses. It is accompanied by an Implementation and Process Evaluation and a further report analysing of the scale-up of EEF efficacy trials
The full report, together with the IPE and scale-up review, is available here.