I am not necessarily married to evidence-informed, but this week, I had to think of that typical vow you make when you get married. It is very easy to work evidence-informed if the evidence matches your beliefs.

The real challenge for people who want to work evidence-informed is when the evidence does not match what you think is good or bad for education. I once had a discussion with a very famous head mistress of a London school about her ban on group work in her school because I asked ‘show me the evidence’.

My international colleagues at Leerpunt also know that their fans suddenly became critical because the research did not state what they wanted.

Does that mean that nothing can go wrong with research? Not at all. Does it mean that big names or institutes cannot make mistakes? No, certainly not. This weekend, I found a grave error on the Visible Learning MetaX website, where a new meta-analysis was added to collective teacher efficacy.

But you have to be critical of all research, not just the research you don’t like. Otherwise, you suffer from confirmation bias and are no better than the people who claim that “you can prove anything with science.”