基于证据的教育决策:理念、标准与潜在风险

Evidence-Based Educational Policy-Making: Idea, Standards and Potential Risks

决策应“基于证据”或“知于证据”的理念日益成为一种专业共识,但对于“什么是有效的证据”,政策领域和学术领域依然聚讼不已。从政策文件和现有的学术讨论来看,“证据”主要被定义为通过科学研究方法所得到的系统知识,把由随机分配实验得来的知识视为“证据”的黄金标准。“基于证据”的理念在改进教育决策专业性方面具有理论上的可能性,但这一理念应用于教育这一特殊的专业实践是否可行依然是一个有争议的课题。这不仅涉及到这一理念自身的合理性问题,也涉及到学术共同体对该理念可能带来教育决策和教育研究潜在风险的担忧:过度迷恋基于证据的教育决策理念,不仅于教育决策本身无益,也潜伏着对教育研究路向的负面影响。

The idea that policy-making should be evidence-based or at least evidence-informed is becoming a consensus.However, as for the nature of effective evidence, the academic community has not reached an agreement yet. Based on policy documents and existing academic discussions, evidence is defined as involving the application of rigorous, systematic, and objective procedures to obtain reliable and valid knowledge, and knowledge coming from randomized control trials is seen as the golden standard of evidence. Such idea is theoretically possible to improve the scientificity of educational policy-making, but the feasibility of its application to education, one special professional practice, remains to be very controversial. The controversies involve not only the idea of evidence-based education, but also involve the concerns of academic community over its potential risks to educational policymaking and educational research.