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Purpose of Review: Recent scholarship has advocated the need for more detailed analysis of key components within sexual offender treatment programs that contribute to successful outcomes; and importantly to delineate 'what works best, for whom.' The present review interrogates recent scholarship on treatment duration and dosage, program composition and sequencing, to advance critical discussion on 'for whom' treatment works best. Recent Findings: Although we now know more about what key program components are associated with better outcomes overall, observed differences at an individual level reemphasize the importance of attending to specific responsivity factors in treatment. Summary: Elevating the specific responsivity principle demands more tailored methods to program design and implementation. However, implementing nuanced programming within 'real-world' correctional settings poses significant challenges. Therefore, we call to action the adoption of an implementation science lens in future research, to optimize translation of research knowledge on 'what works, and for whom' into practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the rise of neuroscience in initial teacher education, paying attention to the relatively recent Australian Government (2023) report titled 'Strong Beginnings'. In taking up a critical policy sociology lens, we focus on the first priority within the reforms, which is mandating brain science and the 'brain and learning' as core curriculum within initial teacher education. The reforms will embed standardised curriculum into initial teacher education and tie this curriculum to graduate teacher standards, bracketed within prescribed texts, ideologies and agendas. The reforms are positioned within the 'what works' movement, increasing accreditation and certain types of evidence, and the role and authority of intermediary organisations, including the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). It promotes research that has been paid for by the think tank Centre for Independent Studies and aligned with the Australian Education Research Organisation and Education Endowment Foundation. In this paper, we endeavour to highlight how the singular and narrow focus on brain-based approaches is not only reductionist, but also potentially generative of oppressive technologies. The mandating of standardised curriculum and brain science undermines educators, including initial teacher educators, and bolsters private interests in education. The standardisation of core curriculum, which will be tied to accreditation processes and graduate teacher standards, is underpinned by a punitive-accountability based approach. Furthermore, whilst it is less visible, these reforms contain brain science tropes redolent of eugenics and deficit framings of low socio-economic status students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing access to higher education (HE) over the past two decades, students from disadvantaged backgrounds remain less likely to enter the most selective institutions, and less likely to achieve good outcomes. In England, providers that charge more than £6,000 a year tuition fees must have an Access and Participation Plan (APP) approved by the Office for Students (OfS). Plans aim to improve equality in student access, success, and progression. APPs typically focus on snapshots of equality gaps, inputs over outcomes, and individual institutions over collaborative efforts. These limitations encourage a "whack-a-mole" approach, reducing effectiveness of interventions. A more nuanced approach to evaluation is needed, together with increased and organized sector-wide collaboration, and acknowledgment of the dynamic operating context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ObjectivesThis meta-review integrates the findings of meta-analyses and systematic reviews to explore the effect of intervention programs on recidivism for juvenile offenders.MethodsThe systematic literature search gathered 48 meta-analyses and systematic reviews from 53 research reports, contributing 56 independent effect sizes for analysis. These effect sizes were statistically integrated, and five moderators of theoretical and methodological importance were tested using meta-regression.ResultsOn average, intervention programs are associated with a significant reduction in recidivism (r Φ = -0.09, p < 0.001) for juvenile offenders who participate in a program compared to those who do not. However, reductions in recidivism significantly vary between the levels of criminal justice system, characteristics of juvenile offenders, types of program modalities, and methodological quality.ConclusionsResults indicate that intervention programs can be an effective approach to reducing recidivism for juvenile offenders, especially when combined with a rehabilitative program modality.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11292-021-09472-z.

"Closing the loop" in Learning Analytics (LA) requires an ongoing design and research effort to ensure that the technological innovation emerging from LA addresses the actual, pragmatic problems of educators in everyday learning environments. An approach to doing so explored in this paper is to design LA as a part of the human systems of activity within an educational environment, as opposed to conceptualising LA as a stand-alone system offering judgement. In short, this paper offers a case-study of how LA can generate data representations that can provide the basis for expansive and deliberative decision-making within the learning community. The case-study provided makes use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to monitor the changing patterns of decision making around teaching and learning in a very large Australian college over several years as that college embarked on an organised program of practitioner research. Examples of how the various SNA metrics can be translated into matters of pragmatic concern to the college, its leaders, teachers and students, are provided and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This literature review critically examines the concept of 'evidence-based practice' (EBP) in education, particularly its implementation in England. EBP, which advocates using scientific research to inform teaching, enjoys widespread support from policymakers and educators. However, concerns exist regarding its emphasis on quantitative evidence, particularly findings from laboratory experiments and randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Critics argue that this approach can reduce teacher autonomy and struggles to adapt to diverse educational contexts. By analysing a broad range of literature, this review explores the current 'what works' approach within EBP and highlights its challenges, such as neglecting qualitative data and the complexities of real-world classrooms. The review concludes by advocating for a more balanced approach that integrates both quantitative and qualitative research methods, while fostering collaboration between researchers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing access to higher education (HE) over the past two decades, students from disadvantaged backgrounds remain less likely to enter the most selective institutions, and less likely to achieve good outcomes. In England, providers that charge more than £6,000 a year tuition fees must have an Access and Participation Plan (APP) approved by the Office for Students (OfS). Plans aim to improve equality in student access, success, and progression. APPs typically focus on snapshots of equality gaps, inputs over outcomes, and individual institutions over collaborative efforts. These limitations encourage a “whack-a-mole” approach, reducing effectiveness of interventions. A more nuanced approach to evaluation is needed, together with increased and organized sector-wide collaboration, and acknowledgment of the dynamic operating context.

“Closing the loop” in Learning Analytics (LA) requires an ongoing design and research effort to ensure that the technological innovation emerging from LA addresses the actual, pragmatic problems of educators in everyday learning environments. An approach to doing so explored in this paper is to design LA as a part of the human systems of activity within an educational environment, as opposed to conceptualising LA as a stand-alone system offering judgement. In short, this paper offers a case-study of how LA can generate data representations that can provide the basis for expansive and deliberative decision-making within the learning community. The case-study provided makes use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to monitor the changing patterns of decision making around teaching and learning in a very large Australian college over several years as that college embarked on an organised program of practitioner research. Examples of how the various SNA metrics can be translated into matters of pragmatic concern to the college, its leaders, teachers and students, are provided and discussed.

Clearinghouses set standards of scientific quality to vet existing research to determine how "evidence-based" an intervention is. This paper examines 12 educational clearinghouses to describe their effectiveness criteria, to estimate how consistently they rate the same program, and to probe why their judgments differ. All the clearinghouses value random assignment, but they differ in how they treat its implementation, how they weight quasi-experiments, and how they value ancillary causal factors like independent replication and persisting effects. A total of 1359 programs were analyzed over 10 clearinghouses; 83% of them were assessed by a single clearinghouse and, of those rated by more than one, similar ratings were achieved for only about 30% of the programs. This high level of inconsistency seems to be mostly due to clearinghouses disagreeing about whether a high program rating requires effects that are replicated and/or temporally persisting. Clearinghouses exist to identify "evidence-based" programs, but the inconsistency in their recommendations of the same program suggests that identifying "evidence-based" interventions is still more of a policy aspiration than a reliable research practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global policy development in schooling often looks to solutions that embrace technology and articulate a 'what works' approach to practice. This paper takes as a case study the Australian Government's Through Growth to Achievement report on achieving school excellence. It analyses the report through the lens of 'sublimes', which provide insight into the way certain policy rhetoric can become reified. Through Growth to Achievement emphasises technological solutions which align with and reify an aesthetic notion of good teaching that draws on the 'what works' literature. This analysis argues that certain assumptions about technology, teacher practice and the 'evidence' for good policy are based on these reifications. A sublimes analysis makes these unspoken assumptions explicit and reveals the way they reinforce globalised policy approaches and foreclose others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how evaluability assessments can be designed and conducted to generate meaningful and actionable results for reducing youth crime in Jamaica. It draws on case illustrations from the 2021 'Testing, Testing' CAPRI research study report to highlight the nexus between research and evaluation and promote adopting practices that can enhance the quality and relevance of evaluations conducted within the Caribbean region and beyond. The findings suggest that data needed to inform evaluation and evidenced-based policymaking remain limited despite re-energised regional and global efforts to address this challenge. Particularly, low data quality, production, and use continue to hinder measuring progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. The article, therefore, offers an accessible decolonising framework for understanding, supporting and critically assessing how inertia within the context of evaluation practice can be challenged. Concrete suggestions for action include using local knowledge and underutilised techniques such as evaluability assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a short response to the critique of realist evaluation written by Haudenhuyse and Debognies in 2022 in the International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. No doubt experienced realist evaluators will have already made a wry judgement on the perspicacity of their opinions. However, new researchers and evaluation commissioners newly considering a realist approach may be dismayed by what they read. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers why and how evidence-based practice has become distorted in practice, and what to do about it. We present qualitative data from an action research project in policing to highlight tensions between the rhetoric and reality of evidence-based practice, and the ways in which evidence-based practice's seductive catchphrase 'what works' is being understood and applied. Through the lens of care ethics, we integrate 'what matters' with 'what works', and 'what matters/works here ' with 'what matters/works everywhere'. This approach recognizes relational expertise, practical reasoning and critical inquiry as vital for evidence-based practice in practices of social intervention. Drawing on key care ethics motifs, we suggest that care is the ethical scaffolding upon which social justice relies, and hence crucial to organs of security, peacekeeping and law enforcement. From this position, we argue that policing might renegotiate its difficult relationship with the particular, recasting it from something uncomfortably discretionary (the maverick cop) and shameful (an individualized blame culture) into something that underpins and enhances police professionalism. While developed in a policing context, these reflections have a broader relevance for questions of professional legitimacy and credibility, especially within the 'new professions', and the costs of privileging any one type of understanding over others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that bystander training has the potential to reduce violence and abuse. It is not clear how and why the training works. We evaluated bystander training to find out what works. We found that interactive techniques, such as group discussions, 'the video', and the use of real‐world examples were the best ways of delivering the training because they stood out and were remembered by participants. These findings add to the paucity of research on what works in bystander training, and in doing so, raises implications for the design and delivery of future training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an analysis of two current policy options to improve evaluation of access and participation work: independent external evaluation vs. in-house evaluation. Evaluation of access and participation work needs to be well-conducted, objective and widely disseminated, regardless of the outcome. Independent external evaluation is likely to provide objectivity and the right skills, but providing effective and timely feedback may be prohibitively expensive. Without support, in-house practitioner teams risk lack of objectivity and skills. Neither external nor in-house evaluation is likely to solve issues of publication bias; usage of open science principles could help. Working with academics and other experts internal to the institution could provide the skills to work well under the open science framework. Working as a sector to avoid duplication of effort is likely to get us further, faster.

Claims of crisis in education are not new though their orientation has changed over time. This paper is concerned with the contemporary discourse surrounding an apparent global learning crisis, examining the dominant logics through which education and its concomitant crises are imagined and operationalized. In this conceptual essay, we take "crisis" as representing both challenges faced by society and as an opportunity to interrupt the current order. We suggest that a key crisis facing education currently is not a learning crisis, but the dominant evidence-based approach and "what works" logic. In response, we argue for utilizing Levitas' utopia as method as a way for educational researchers and practitioners to engage in imagining alternative futures. The method involves excavation of conditions that have resulted in the current moment, critical questioning of being for both humans and the institutions we construct, and imagining alternative ways of being and doing education. We illustrate briefly how the method can be used in applying it to an analysis of the OECD's Global Competency Framework. This method is not presented as a solution, but as a crisis response that is imaginative and attempts to create possibilities and spaces of hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short article is a comment on the recent proposal of a What Works Centre for probation (Sanders, Jones and Briggs, 2021). Any new 'What Works' initiative needs to be informed by the patchy and uneven history of research on the effectiveness of probation in England and Wales. Problems have included, at various times, failure to keep up with research in other countries; over-dependency on government departments to conduct and fund research; poor planning and/or implementation of experimental projects; excessive managerialism, and failure to engage practitioners in a research culture. Unless they are avoided, these problems will hamper any new initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares and contrasts two versions of the Education Endowment Foundation's (EEF) Teaching and Learning Toolkit ('Toolkit'), a web-based summary of international evidence on teaching 3-18 year-olds. The Toolkit has localised versions in six different languages in Australia, Cameroon, Chile, Jordan and Spain. The initial Toolkit, created in 2011 with funding from the Sutton Trust and updated since then with funding from EEF, drew upon over 250 meta-analyses across 30 areas of education research. An updated version, drawing on a database of over 2500 single studies from these meta-analyses was launched in Autumn 2021. This change was motivated by increased interest in evidence-use in education, and a desire to engage in more rigorous synthesis of primary studies. The article presents the rationale for these changes, outlines the methods adopted to populate and analyse the Toolkit database and presents results from this analysis. Findings indicate that although the broad picture of the relative benefits of the different approaches is similar, a more fine-grained analysis is possible. This deeper synthesis can provide more specific guidance about what has been successful in the different areas of the Toolkit in research studies and offers opportunities for further refinement and improvement. This increased specificity, however, comes at the cost of greater complexity in the findings and the implications for policy and practice, and it increases the challenge of ensuring findings are both accurate and accessible. A final section reflects on the challenges of summarising evidence from research to inform decision-making in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the factors contributing to the successful tenancies for Indigenous Australians in Australia. Topics include the need for housing policies and programs to be flexible and holistic to achieve success in Indigenous tenancies, the cooperation between government agencies and Indigenous groups in creating policies and programs, and the results of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS).

The What Works Movement in the UK Government has seen the establishment of 12 centres to focus on evidence-based policy in different domains. In this paper, we present the challenges and opportunities posed by a What Works Centre (WWC) for Probation, based on our prior experience of establishing WWCs in other areas. Although there are legitimate and substantial challenges to some of the methodological approaches of 'What Works', we conclude that Probation is in an unusually strong starting position for such a centre to thrive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptual replications have received increased coverage in the educational research agenda. This article argues for clarity in, and justification of, the definition, scope, and boundaries of a conceptual replication and what it can and cannot do. It argues for clear justifications when changing components from those of the original study. The article raises issues concerning internal validity and construct validity which arise from the elision of replication with applicability and generalisability in a conceptual replication, and questions how far the "concept" needs, and can obtain, greater separation from context. It indicates limits to the power of conceptual replications to falsify and verify the original study, and argues for greater specificity, precision, accuracy, and attention to contexts, conditions, and causality and their influence on outcomes. Implications are drawn for preparing, planning, conducting, analysing, judging, and reporting "fair" conceptual replications in education, identifying 10 "rules" for a fair conceptual replication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike in other jurisdictions, in Catalonia there has been no specific evaluation of women's experiences regarding community sentences. The purpose of this article is to contribute to filling this gap by conducting qualitative research in Barcelona and Girona to analyse the experiences of women serving community sentences. To this end, 23 semi-structured interviews with women offenders are analysed. The results follow the trend found in research conducted in other jurisdictions and show that women have multiple issues, responsibilities and needs in comparison with men, and what works with female offenders is different from what works with male offenders with regard to supervision style, relationship with professionals and unpaid work or therapy environments. The findings make it possible to identify alternative responses that offer appropriate support and interventions to address women's underlying problems and reduce reoffending. The article underscores the importance of listening to women's voices in order to achieve a gender-sensitive criminal justice system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "what works" movement has increasingly gained recognition among correctional practitioners and traction within correctional settings. It is now well established that in order to obtain meaningful recidivism reductions, programs must maintain fidelity to the principles of effective interventions. After more than four decades of research supporting the Risk-Need-Responsivity model, little is presently known about how well correctional programs have adopted and implemented evidence-based correctional practices on a larger scale. The current study examines the results from an extensive collection of correctional program assessments completed across the United States over the course of 14 years. Results offer practitioners and researchers insight into the current state of fidelity to evidence-based practices and highlight areas for improvement in correctional programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: National suicide prevention strategies and action plans have, historically, been written without input from consumers/current users of mental health services. People who could arguably be seen as experts in this area are rarely asked for their knowledge regarding the efficacy of suicide prevention and intervention efforts. The aims of this study were to gain further insight into the effectiveness of suicide prevention intervention in Aotearoa New Zealand by asking service users "What works?" and to promote lived experience as a valid form of evidence. This article focuses on the importance of a holistic model of health and wellbeing and highlights the role played by social workers, both currently and in the future, regarding suicide prevention and intervention efforts. METHODS: Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals with lived experience of suicidal ideation and/or attempt. FINDINGS: Using thematic analysis, a variety of interventions were identified which participants found effective, including exercise, addressing physical health needs, practising mindfulness, use of medications and spirituality. These interventions, and others, are presented as themes within a framework of people, body, mind and spirit. CONCLUSIONS: It is important to view health holistically, and social workers can make an important contribution towards wellbeing through the provision of psychosocial interventions. Also, it is crucial to involve individuals with lived experience within research that informs policy and practice, and within collaborative treatment decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: dynamic risk; correctional psychology; what works; evidence based practice EN dynamic risk correctional psychology what works evidence based practice 5 8 4 02/19/21 20210201 NES 210201 Tony Ward, in this editorial, reminds us of his description of contemporary forensic and correctional practice as "theoretically illiterate", at least when it comes to the contribution that treatment has to make to reducing recidivism. Ward's argument, however, suggests that the real problem here is not about implementation, but about a model of practice - the risk paradigm - that has reached the limits of its power. The development of an individual treatment paradigm for forensic practice may also have implications for whether we continue to aspire to use terms such as "evidence-based" or "best practice" to describe our work. Dynamic risk, correctional psychology, what works, evidence based practice. [Extracted from the article]

Evidence-based practice (EBP) advocates that treatments offered to patients should be empirically supported and effective. Group-based treatment is offered in forensic mental health services as a way of assisting forensic patients (FPs) to address their offending behavior. However, little research exists examining how research and practice are integrated in these interventions, consistent with the principles of EBP. This study examined the utilization and evaluation of offense-specific group treatment programs with FPs, with a specific focus on interventions for substance misuse, sexual offending, firesetting, and violent offending. The results highlight that despite frequent use of offense-specific group interventions for FPs in UK forensic mental health services, evaluation is lacking regarding both published evaluations and through routine clinical practice. To ensure consistency with principles of EBP, recommendations are made surrounding the implementation of routine evaluations (e.g., follow-up studies) of offense-specific group treatment programs with FPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a number of translational tools have been developed in policing to make the growing research evidence base more accessible and useful for practitioners and policymakers. Here we focus on the creation of the 'What works in policing?' website, which resulted from a collaboration between a government agency in Seattle, Washington and researchers at George Mason University and Arizona State University. We describe the site in detail and its similarities to and differences from existing translation tools, as well as the rationale for a local government's involvement in translational work. In particular we focus on efforts to link the site with the work of the Seattle Police Department through a case study approach. We review indicators that suggest the site is being well-utilized and close with thoughts on the future of translational work in policing and efforts to ensure translational tools are useful to practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global Mental Health has developed interventions that strive to work across great difference-variously conceptualized as cultural, socio-economic, geographic, or pertaining to the characteristics of health systems. This article discusses how the evaluation framework Theory of Change (ToC) facilitates the production of 'global' knowledge across such differences. Drawing on 14 months of multi-sited fieldwork among Global Mental Health actors in Europe, North America and South Africa, it traces the differential use of ToC in GMH interventions. While much critical scholarship of Global Health metrics holds that techniques of quantification rely on universals that necessarily betray the "real world", ToC unsettles these critiques. It comes into view as an epistemic and relational device that produces 'contingent universals'-concepts that are true and measurable until they stop working in the field, or until the parameters of 'what works' shift to a new iteration. As such, Theory of Change produces actionable-rather than true-knowledge attuned to open-ended change, both desirable (impact) and unforeseen (adaptation). Its effects, however, are ambiguous. ToC presents us with a horizoning technique that enables what I call "virtuous failure" within the evidence-based paradigm. It may equally harbor the potential to disrupt distinctions such as bricolage (tinkering) and design (planning) and their respective politics, as it may tie neatly into audit cultures, depending on its use. The article analyzes the novel stakes of reflexive evaluation techniques and calls on anthropology and critical Global Health for renewed empirical engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: Does social work supervision work? Social work academics and others have argued repeatedly that we need to focus more attention on understanding whether and how supervision helps improve outcomes for people who use services. As things stand, we currently have little evidence either way--and although the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, this is far from an ideal situation. APPROACH: Taking inspiration from realist approaches to evaluation, this article sets out an initial working theory of social work supervision for child and family services, developed from an analysis of six significant reviews of the supervision literature. Each review was analysed to identify key contexts, mechanisms and outcomes for supervision. CONCLUSION: Notable gaps within the theory are identified in relation to workers, outcomes for children and families and how supervision can promote a rights-based approach. The article concludes by arguing that this working theory offers the basis for future evaluative studies of supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights 10 key strands of continuity and change in the use of evidence over the past two decades. Interest in evidence use continues, as do the many challenges encountered when seeking to deliver on this aspiration. There have been developments in ideas and actions, which foster some optimism that better use of varying forms of evidence can be encouraged. Speaking directly to policy-makers, funders, and users of evidence-based information, this article makes the case for ongoing, multi-actor activity to improve the use of evidence in public policy and service delivery. This involves ensuring definitions of good evidence are fit for purpose; developing inclusive processes that enable evidence to be integrated with other forms of knowledge and ways of knowing; doing more than improving the supply of evidence by building relationships and systems that support evidence use; ensuring sustainable funding models for evidence-use initiatives that have been shown to be effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]