Evaluating and researching the effectiveness of educational interventions

Members of the medical profession seem reluctant to value research into the effectiveness of educational interventions.1 One reason for this reluctance may be that there is a fundamental difficulty in addressing the questions that everyone wants answered: what works, in what context, with which groups, and at what cost? Unfortunately, there may not be simple answers to these questions. Defining true effectiveness, separating out the part played by the various components of an educational intervention, and clarifying the real cost:benefit ratio are as difficult in educational research as they are in the evaluation of a complex treatment performed on a sample group of people who each have different needs, circumstances, and personalities. ### Summary points Choosing a methodology to use to investigate a research question is no different in educational research than it is in any other type of research. Careful attention …