The Implications of Hattie’s (2012)
Evidence-based Research for Teaching
Higher Education in Further Education
Claire Lloyd
School of Education & Training, Coleg
Llandrillo Cymru
claire.lloyd@llandrillo.ac.uk
01492-546666 x390
Robin Trangmar
School of Education & Training,
Coleg Llandrillo Cymru
r.trangmar@llandrillo.ac.uk
01492-546666 x427
@yrathro
Aim of Presentation
 To share the initial findings of the implications of
Hattie’s Visible Learning (2009a) for course design and
delivery within the context of teacher education in a
further education college
 “Creating effective teachers”
 Hattie’s Visible Learning for Teachers (2012)


Provides a detailed source of evidenced-based research into what
helps improve learning
Provides a useful starting point for novice, experienced and
expert teachers to explore ways of developing their practice
 Our research illustrates some of the challenges of bringing
Hattie’s models into the classroom
“After 30 years of doing such work, I have
concluded that classroom teaching … is
perhaps the most complex, most
challenging, and most demanding, subtle,
nuanced, and frightening activity that our
species has ever invented. …The only time a
physician could possibly encounter a
situation of comparable complexity would
be in the emergency room of a hospital
during or after a natural disaster.”
(Shulman, 2004; 504)
Context (1)
 A teacher education programme for the post-compulsory
(PcET) or lifelong learning sector
 Mixed pre & in-service
 Two years part-time
 Professional Graduate / Certificate in Education
 franchised from a Higher Education Institute (HEI) and
delivered by an FE college
 at Level 4 and 5, or Level 4 and 6, depending on whether
the trainee teacher has a degree at entry
 Entrants are required to have at least a Level 3
qualification in the subject they wish to teach
Context (2)
 PcET teacher education programmes built around a
generic pedagogical framework
 Trainee teachers will teach, or aspire to teach, in a
variety of settings
 FE colleges: From GCSEs and A levels to professional
courses, vocational courses, eg. plumbing, hairdressing
 Adult and Community Learning
 Private training organisations
 Educational experience is typically varied
Who is Hattie?
 Hattie – Visible Learning (2009a)
 Documented the results of over 800 metaanalyses from 52,637 research articles to
identify the aspects of schooling that impacted
student learning
 Hattie - Visible Learning for Teachers (2012)
 Explains how to apply the principles of visible
learning to “any classroom anywhere in the
world”
 Describes a coherent framework consisting of
43 core attributes that emerged from the metaanalyses as the basis of effective practice
Hattie – Visible Learning (2009a)
 Evidence collected across all phases of education (primary,
secondary and post-compulsory)
 dominated by school sectors (Atherton, 2011)
 Hattie (2009b) identified effects relating to HE

“what works in schools also works in universities”
(Hattie 2009b; 9)
 Effect sizes
 The magnitude of an intervention’s impact
 Effect size of 1.0 indicates an increase in achievement of one standard
deviation (50% improvement in the rate of learning)
 Hattie sets a “hinge point” of .40 (average of all his effect sizes)
 Almost any invention can claim to enhance learning (90% of all effect
sizes are positive)
Hattie’s (2009b) Ranking of effects
relevant to HE (sample)
Rank
Domain
Influence
d
1
3
8
9
10
12
13
17
18
19
20
Student
Teaching
Teacher
Teaching
Teaching
Teaching
Teaching
Curricula
Teaching
Teacher
Teaching
Self-report grades
Providing formative evaluation to lecturers
Teacher clarity
Reciprocal teaching
Feedback
Spaced vs. Mass Practice
Meta-cognitive strategies
Creativity Programs
Self-verbalisation/Self-questioning
Professional development
Problem solving teaching
1.44
0.9
0.75
0.74
0.73
0.71
0.69
0.65
0.64
0.62
0.61
Visible Learning – major message
 Teachers have the potential to exert a powerful effect on
student learning (Hattie, 2009a)
 The magnitude of impact rests with the extent to which
they see themselves as evaluators



collecting evidence to test the effectiveness of their practice
intervening thoughtfully and purposefully to improve student
outcomes
providing support and feedback that helps students progress and
become regulators of their own learning
 “The more the student becomes the teacher and the more
the teacher becomes the learner, then the more successful
are the outcomes.” (Hattie, 2009a; 25-6)
The aims of the research
 To use Hattie’s (2012) framework to;
 evaluate course design and delivery
 measure the impact on students
 explore more deeply what happens during an initial teacher training
programme
 Engage in a “way of teaching” that is informed by evidence
and adapted by student data
 Embrace a range of teaching strategies, with a focus on
improved short and long term outcomes
 Enhance outcomes for trainee teachers
 knowledge of theory, pedagogy and curriculum
 ability to select, plan and deliver effective teaching
Research Questions
1. How do the critical elements of visible learning
impact programme design within the context of an
HE teacher training course taught within FE?
2. How can the critical elements of visible learning
(as a way of thinking and evaluating learning) be
incorporated into programme delivery within the
context of HE?
3. How does visible learning impact student
outcomes in terms of :
 (a) their knowledge of theory, pedagogy and curriculum and
 (b) their ability to select from a range of teaching strategies to plan and deliver
effective teaching.
Research Design: Case Study Approach
 Phase 1:
 Qualitative content analysis of research documents
 Visible Learning for Teachers (2012) the primary source,
and other supporting documents will be located to further
clarify meaning
 Phase 2:
 A range of qualitative and quantitative methods

How visible learning informs program design and delivery,
including observations, questionnaires, outcome data, etc.
Findings
 Phase 1 – completed, May 2012 (research question 1)
 Phase 2 – commences, August 2012 (research question
2&3)
What practical issues arise around the delivery of visible
learning within the context of HE in FE?
 Review of Visible Learning for Teachers
 The framework had major implications for the design and
delivery of the programme
 A complete review and redesign needed, rather than
piecemeal modifications
What is Visible Learning?
Visible Learning is fundamentally about collecting
evidence to know the impact we have on all students.
It is then about using that evidence to inform:
 the provision of feedback to students – that takes them
forward in their learning and development;
 teacher evaluations of their effects on students – that
leads to adaptations, modifications and innovations within
the learning environment that emerge from a sound
understanding of those strategies and
conditions that best facilitate student learning.
Program Design: The plan ...
1. Collecting Evidence
 Create planned opportunities to evaluate the progress of each
student as they move from year 1 to year 2 of the programme
 Transitional review of individual student progress (portfolio) with first
year tutors handing over the trainee teacher to the second year tutors.
Reviews to embrace
 Teaching Practice
 Key Knowledge and Understanding
 Literacy Skills
 Particular focus on trainees who are at risk of falling below
the line so that early and targeted interventions can be
developed.
Program Design: The plan ...
1. Collecting Evidence
 Develop multiple formative assessments
 on-line formative questions (which students can access via
the college’s VLE)
 more structured in-class questioning (possibly using
electronic voting systems - ‘clickers’)
 writing of structured questions that facilitate deep learning
rather than the surface recall of facts.
 Encourage students to self-regulate


to analyse their own performance
identify points for improvement and set appropriately
challenging personal goals (reviewed through the professional
development plan - PDP)
Program Design: The plan ...
2. Impacting Learning
 Use of Biggs & Collis’ SOLO Taxonomy:
 for lesson design and better differentiation
 to help students increase the depth of their responses
 to increase the planned use of surface, deep and
conceptual learning
 Development of meta-cognitive strategies
 provide non-academic background students with the
strategies to cope requirements of learning on an HE
course
 create opportunities for the explicit teaching of learning
strategies earlier in the programme
SOLO TAXONOMY
(after Biggs and Collis 1982)
Misses the
point!
Who
painted
Guernica
?
Outline at least
two
compositional
principles that
Picasso used in
Guernica.
Relate the
theme of
Guernica to a
current
event.
Surface
Learning
Prestructural Unistructural
What do you
consider Picasso
was saying via
his painting of
Guernica?
Deep Learning
Multistructural
Relational
Extended abstract
Program Design: The plan ...
3. Providing Feedback
 Implement a model of feedback that addresses three
questions and operates at four levels of learning:
Levels of Feedback
1.
Task
Three Feedback
Questions
Where am I going? What
are my goals?
Providing Effective Feedback
Session goals will be communicated through learning intentions and success criteria
(i.e. learning goals).

Intentions and criteria should be differentiated to involve appropriate challenge for
all students.
Students should understand and be able to articulate the intentions and criteria.
2.
Process
How am I going? What
progress is being made
towards the goal?
Responding to the results of systematic formative assessment data (including self
and peer assessments), rapid formative feedback will be provided either through the
VLE or face-to-face following in-class formative assessments.
Checks will be made to see how feedback is received by students to ensure that
it is understood and perceived to be relevant.
3.
Selfregulation
4.
Self-Level
Where to next? What
activities need to be
undertaken next to make
better progress?
A self-regulatory component will be incorporated into formative assessments.

In light of learning intentions and criteria, students will assess their own progress in
meeting goals and personal targets.
Avoid mixing praise with feedback because this reduces the effect.
Program Design: The plan ...
4. Evaluating Student Performance:
 Use a data team model to manage student progress
 Create a plan to monitor student learning and teacher
instruction
 Meet every 2-3 weeks to analyse the outcomes data
 Monitor the performance of individual students and
engage in dialogue about more and less effective
instructional strategies
Collecting and
charting data
for each
student
Using the
evidence to
prioritise and
set, review and
revise
incremental
goals
Questioning the
instructional
strategies and
how they are
impacting each
student
Monitoring
the impact of
strategies on
student
learning
Program Design: The plan ...
5. Facilitating Student Learning: Strategies &
Conditions
 “Audit” existing schemes of learning and session plans to evaluate the
extent to which “effective teaching” strategies appear within and across
sessions.
 For example:
 Strategy: Classrooms are dominated more by dialogue
than by monologue about learning:
 Do the questions asked during the sessions facilitate dialogue that targets deep
thinking?
 What is the ratio of teacher-student talk during sessions?
 Do group tasks facilitate “productive learning or busy work”?
References
 Atherton J S (2011) Teaching and Learning; What Works Best. Available




online at http://www.learningandteaching.info/teaching/what_works.htm
(accessed 15 May 2012)
Biggs, J., & Collis, K., (1982). Evaluating the Quality of Learning: the SOLO
taxonomy New York: Academic Press.
Hattie, J., (2009a) Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses
relating to achievement. London, Routledge
Hattie, J., (2009b). The Black Box of Tertiary Assessment: An Impending
Revolution. In L. H.
Meyer, S. Davidson, H. Anderson, R. Fletcher, P.M. Johnston, & M. Rees
(Eds.), Tertiary Assessment & Higher Education Student Outcomes:
Policy, Practice & Research (pp. 259-275). Wellington, New Zealand: Ako
Aotearoa
Shulman, L., (2004) The Wisdom of Practice: Essays on Teaching Learning
and Learning to Teach. New York, Jossey-Bass.