New What Works Clearinghouse Website Offers Powerful Tools to Foster Evidence-Based Decision Making

With teachers and students back in school, finding educational interventions that help students succeed just got easier with the redesigned What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) website. Mathematica developed key features of the new site, a trusted source of evidence for educators, including a tool that lets users Find What Works. Find What Works helps identify programs, products, practices, and policies, and with the strongest evidence of effectiveness positively affecting student outcomes—an increasingly important goal in the era of evidence-based decision making. The powerful search function allows users to sort and filter their searches by gender, race and ethnicity, school setting, and grade level, and to compare interventions to find the right fit for their students.

“Our work to enhance the WWC can help educators across the country identify high-quality research and make educational decisions that result in improved student outcomes,” said Neil Seftor, director of the What Works Clearinghouse at Mathematica.

Mathematica has worked with the Institute of Education Sciences to manage the WWC since 2007, and has also developed new subject-matter practice guides for teachers, including “Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade.” These guides blend research and practice to offer educators evidence-based recommendations for teaching and overcoming challenges in the classroom.

Watch a video tour or visit the site to explore:

• Improved website navigation: Visitors can quickly find what they are looking for, whether it’s practice guides with evidence-based recommendations for the classroom, or intervention reports that summarize the evidence on specific programs or policies.
• New evidence snapshots: Quick summaries of intervention reports, including an overview of studies testing each intervention.
• A Review of Individual Studies feature: Users can get information on thousands of studies that have been reviewed by the WWC and see if the research met the WWC's rigorous study standards.

“At Mathematica, we’re proud to contribute to the growing effort to inform evidence-based decisions. Our collaboration with the Institute of Education Sciences and our partners on the WWC has moved that mission forward,” said Jill Constantine, a vice president at Mathematica.