Visible Learning

Visible Learning was introduced with John Hattie's meta-study Visible Learning.^[1] In her detailed critique of Hattie’s research Inez De Florio (2016) underscored that the term which is often attributed to Hattie was already used by Howard Gardner in his study Making Learning Visible published for the first time in 2001.^[2][3] Hattie's synthesis of over 800 meta-studies is the result of 15 years' research covering more than 80 million students and bringing together more than 50,000 smaller studies. It is one of the largest collections of evidence-based research about what works best in education.

Hattie compared the effect size of many aspects that influence learning outcomes in schools and points out that in education most things work. The questions is which strategies and innovations work best and where to concentrate efforts in order to improve student achievement. The Times Educational Supplement described Hatties meta-study "Visible Learning" as nothing less than "teaching's holy grail".^[4]

According to Hattie's findings Visible Learning occurs when teachers see learning through the eyes of students and help them become their own teachers. Hattie found that the ten most effective influences relating to student achievement are: Student self-reporting grades (d= 1.44), formative evaluation (d=0.9), teacher clarity (d=0.75), reciprocal teaching (d=0.74), feedback (d=0.73), teacher-student relationships (d=0.72), meta-cognitive strategies (d=0.69), self-verbalisation/ questioning (d=0.64), teacher professional development (d=0.62), and problem-solving teaching (d= 0.61).^[1]

Some of the statistical methods used by Hattie have been criticised. And John Hattie himself admitted that of the two statistics in 'Visible Learning', one was calculated incorrectly throughout the book.^[5][6][7]

References