New: we go back to basics on why we run experiments in education Reflecting on 20+ years of data, we argue that some common advice for how and when to use experiments should be revised Was fun working on this with a great team. Reviewers also really helped us sharpen the argument.

New article: Experimental education research: rethinking why, how, and when to use random assignment Out today (even though it’s Saturday): doi.org/10.1080/1380... With @drsamsims.bsky.social @mjinglis.bsky.social @benweidmann.bsky.social @benstyles.bsky.social & Hugues Lortie-Forgues

Experimental education research: rethinking why, how, and when to use random assignment

Over the last twenty years, education researchers have increasingly conducted randomized experiments. Such experiments are usually designed in the hope of supporting comparisons of cost effectivene...

doi.org

🧵 New working paper out today: "Measuring the Regional Economic Cost of Brexit: Evidence as of 2026" with @jacobedenhofer.bsky.social @trfetzer.com & Shizhuo Wang Here's what the data say about who paid the price in these 10 years from the referendum 1/…

🚨🚨 4 weeks to go until the 2026 CEPEO #annyleccy! 🚨🚨 Prof. Jacob is going to tell us what happened when schools banned phones in the US -- just as a widespread ban (probably) comes into force in the UK. Sign up at the link below!

UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities@cepeo-ucl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Do school phone bans actually work? Join us for CEPEO's 5th Annual Lecture with Prof Brian A. Jacob (Michigan / NBER) presenting new US evidence. 🗓 Thurs 9 July 2026, 18:00 📍 Central Hall Westminster Secure your spot today 👇 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cepeo-annu...

New research from Michigan State shows a) school climate has a pretty strong relationship with pupil absenteeism b) this seems to have got stronger since pandemic c) student sense of 'connectedness' may be particularly important aspect of school climate journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....

Are you a post-doc social scientist with strong quantitative skills? Would you like to come and work with myself and @clairetyler.bsky.social alongside all the brilliant people at @cepeo-ucl.bsky.social? If so, please apply for this job! Please repost! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQK316/p...

Post-Doctoral Research Assistant at UCL

An academic position as a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant is being advertised on jobs.ac.uk. Click now to find more details and explore additional academic job opportunities.

jobs.ac.uk

Some perspective: The S&P opened down -1.3% on Trump's Greenland saber-rattling. That's $750 billion of wealth destroyed -- roughly equal to estimates of the value of Greenland. And so ~in dollar terms~ his shenanigans have already cost the US one Greenland, and we've got nothing to show for it.

In our latest CEPEO Working Paper, @drsamsims.bsky.social studies the effects of an intervention to improve A level physics uptake among female students by countering gender stereotypes. Read the results here: econpapers.repec.org/paper/uclcep...

THREAD: I'll fact-check all the viral misinformation about the US military operation in Venezuela in this thread This image, purporting to show the US military arresting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, is AI-generated. According to Google's SynthID detector, it was created using Google AI.

Many students - and indeed adults - underrate themselves when it comes to maths. So what do we know about teaching for confidence in mathematics? www.ambition.org.uk/blog/five-in...

CEPEO colleague @drsamsims.bsky.social has co-authored a new book chapter on effective teacher training. Access it for free here: livehandbook.org/k-12-educati...

Teacher Professional Development: Costs, Benefits and Policy

Explore teacher evaluation methods, incentives, and their impact on student outcomes. Learn how performance measures drive teacher behavior and skills.

livehandbook.org

New research with @clareroutledge.bsky.social Funded by the Gatsby Foundation We asked 2000 UK/US undergrads to choose between pairs of hypothetical jobs to understand how more of them could be tempted into teaching

New research with @clareroutledge.bsky.social Funded by the Gatsby Foundation We asked 2000 UK/US undergrads to choose between pairs of hypothetical jobs to understand how more of them could be tempted into teaching

edworkingpapers.com/sites/defaul...

Do you like the kind of research that we do at @cepeo-ucl.bsky.social? 📈 Do you want to learn more about education policy and analysis? 🏫 Then why not come and do our new MSc this September? 🧑‍🎓 Be warned - the module on teachers and teaching will be taught by me! www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-...

We broadly welcome the recommendations of the Curriculum and Assessment Review, in particular citing CEPEO’s briefing note on the value of GCSEs (econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucl:ce...) and...

More large-scale survey evidence that many students are becoming disengaged from education when they enter secondary school. This time from collaborators of mine at @liftschools.org www.liftschools.org/ks3-engagement

KS3 Engagement Report - Lift Schools

Our survey of 21,000 pupils found a stark drop in belonging from Year 6 to Year 9. We explore why student engagement dips in Key Stage 3. Read our full report.

liftschools.org

Elon Musk's involvement in politics really hurt Tesla sales. "Without the Musk partisan effect, Tesla sales between October 2022 and April 2025 would have been 67-83% higher, equivalent to 1-1.26 million more vehicles."

Finally read the paper and it's worth the buzz. mRNA vaccines saved 20 million lives in a global pandemic and the technology is opening up new avenues for the treatment of deadly cancers. This is really one of the most impactful scientific developments of our time. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint blockade - Nature

mRNA vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2 also sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint inhibitors.

nature.com

To be clear: deportations to increase cultural homogeneity is the text book definition of ethnic cleansing. Demands that come even close to this are so far outside any democratic norm and the rule of law. What has happened to a country when this is not condemned in the strongest possible terms?

Very sensible. Indeed it would be mad if the government didn’t do it the way Daisy proposes.

Daisy Christodoulou@daisychristo.bsky.social · 10mo ago

The government are said to be planning a new Year 8 reading test. Do we need it? Some thoughts here. substack.nomoremarking.com/p/does-engla...

Joel Mokyr won the Nobel prize today Here is what I think he can teach us about improving schools: samsims.education/2022/06/08/e...

Evidence, expertise, and the self-improving school system

(9 minute read) Rob Coe used his 2013 inaugural lecture at Durham to survey the evidence on long-run change in the performance of the English school system. He concluded that standards had not impr…

samsims.education

All teacher training ultimately aims to support transfer of learning to new and varied classroom situations. In this (recently published) paper we provide some of the first experimental evidence on how teacher educators can help achieve this goal: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Decomposition and recomposition: effects on early-career teachers’ enactment and adaptive transfer of behaviour management practices

Breaking down sequences of teaching into constituent practices is thought to make learning to teach more manageable. However, it also divorces teaching practices from context, which risks leaving t...

tandfonline.com

Works in Progress is now available as a print magazine. I think it's the most beautiful and readable magazine I've ever seen. Subscribe today for $100/£75 to receive six beautiful, 120-page issues a year. worksinprogress.co/print

Print - Works in Progress Magazine

worksinprogress.co

How can democrats justify continuing to fund an authoritarian takeover of the federal government? open.spotify.com/episode/5kpn...

If Democrats Have a Better Plan, I’d Like to Hear It

open.spotify.com

Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...

A huge moment -- Melvyn Bragg steps down from In Our Time after over a quarter of a century. What a programme and what a legacy! Just a model for how to make great, clever, engaging radio, and a twenty-seven-year experiment that proves there's a huge global audience for smart, scholarly programming.

Melvyn Bragg decides to step down from presenting In Our Time

After 26 years on the programme, the legendary presenter bids farewell to the series

bbc.co.uk

Are you interested in teacher coaching, simulation, transfer of training? Join us at 11am (online) for this talk on Thursday. Sign up using the link below: ucl.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Across subjects and grades (6th-college) prequestions improve learning--new evidence from real classrooms (open) psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

The @theeef.bsky.social recommends schools use teaching assistants (TAs) to deliver evidence-based interventions This research, led by my colleague Briony Banks, sets out the options and provides advice for school leaders on how to choose between them www.ambition.org.uk/teaching-ass...