Introduction to research: Randomised Controlled Trials

What’s the idea? Evidence-informed practitioners are often faced with educational fads or fashion which may have little or no evidence to support their introduction. Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) are often referred to as the ‘gold standard’ of educational evidence because many sources of bias are removed from the research process. They provide the chance to discover if a specific intervention makes a positive difference, and to develop a body of knowledge and evidence around the effectiveness of different types of intervention. What does it mean? Connolly, Biggart, et al. (2017) describe an RCT as “a trial of particular educational programme or intervention to assess whether it is effective; it is a controlled trial because it compares the progress made by those children taking the programme or intervention, with a comparison or control group of children who do not and who continue as normal; and it is randomised because the children have been randomly allocated to the