What is an evidence-based practice or program (EBP)?
Page 1: What is an EBP?
For Your Information
Although the terms evidence-based practices and evidence-based programs have been used interchangeably, experts in the field, as well as practitioners, are beginning to differentiate between them.
Evidence-Based Practice: Skills, techniques, and strategies that have been proven to work through experimental research studies or large-scale research field studies.
Evidence-Based Program: A collection of practices that, when used together, has been proven to work through experimental research studies or large-scale research field studies.
Educators often use the well established and commonly used practices and strategies that they have seen others use—including their own teachers—never questioning whether these practices are supported by evidence. In fact, some of these practices have been shown to be ineffective or have no data to support them. For example, many schools across the country have adopted a zero tolerance policy and associated disciplinary practices for certain behaviors, yet research indicates that these practices are not only ineffective but are also associated with negative student outcomes.
To improve the quality of instruction students receive and the outcomes that students achieve, the field of education has been making great efforts for a number of years to implement evidence-based practices or programs (EBPs). In general, an EBP is one whose effectiveness is supported by rigorous research. In other words, research shows that the practice or program works. Unfortunately, identifying and selecting an EBP is difficult for education professionals for a number of reasons.
- There are few opportunities for educators to learn about evidence-based practices (e.g., professional development training, conferences, professional journals, a limited number of websites).
- Specific information about an EBP (e.g., description of the practice, the student population it is effective with, implementation procedures, effectiveness rating) can be difficult to locate.
- EBPs are often presented in formats (e.g., research article) that educators find difficult to understand and, in turn, to apply in the classroom.
- Training on how to read and interpret research findings is often inadequate.
- Written descriptions (especially when composed by vendors) might claim that practices and programs are evidence-based even though they are not backed by rigorous research.
- The criteria for deeming a practice or program “evidence-based” might vary depending on the organization or agency producing the effectiveness rating.
- The term “evidence-based” has not been used consistently. Several similar terms have been used to describe the effectiveness of programs or practices: research-based, research-validated, and best practice. Further complicating matters, these terms have evolved over time and have been used interchangeably; consequently, it can be hard to get past the terminology and determine which practices or programs have been shown by research to be effective.
To help clarify the terminology, the table below highlights some common terms you may encounter when searching for an EBP. The first term, “evidence-based practice,” refers to a practice with the strongest research evidence.
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Evidence-based practice |
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Promising practice |
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Research-based practice |
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Emerging practice |
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Other terms that you might encounter during your search for an EBP are “best practice” or “recommended practice.” These terms have been used inconsistently. Sometimes these practices or programs are backed by research, and other times they are not. When reviewing these practices or programs, proceed with caution. You want to make sure they are backed by research not just anecdotal evidence or professional judgment.
Keep in mind that due to inherent difficulties posed by research, limited time, and lack of funding, not all educational practices and programs have been subjected to rigorous research.
Bryan Cook discusses the differences between evidence-based practices and promising practices and how to prioritize their use. (time: 3:05).
Transcript: Bryan Cook, PhD
There are a lot of confusing terms out there. I think it’s important to think about how we use these terms and try to use them meaningfully and consistently, if possible. I think promising practices is an especially important term to be thinking about and to be using, because not everything out there is necessarily identified as an evidence-based practice. I think sometimes we slip into a way of thinking where we think of things as evidence-based practices and everything else we think, “If I’m a good educator, I’m trying to do good things for my students, I want to only use evidence-based practices,” and it would be the rare day, I think, where you could go through an entire day of teaching and use only evidence-based practices. We have to think of ways to prioritize non-evidence-based practices and not think of them as all the same.
There’s at least a few reasons why practices might be non-evidence-based. We might not have a formal review done where we’ve definitively determined that this is an evidence-based practice. There could be research out there that does indicate its effectiveness, but it’s just not been reviewed and formally identified as an evidence-based practice by a scholarly journal or by the What Works Clearinghouse or some of these different systems or organizations that do that kind of work. There’s probably quite a few different things out there that are supported by research but aren’t identified as evidence-based just because evidence-based reviews take a lot of time and effort to do. And I think probably the most-common reason why effective practices aren’t identified yet as evidence-based is that there’s not a body of high-quality research done on a lot of practices. Every evidence-based practice at some point started off as a non-evidence-based practice that we didn’t have enough research out yet to tell whether it was evidenced-based. And so just because something’s not evidenced-based doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s ineffective.
So when we have some research evidence that something works, and we can consider it promising, that’s important to know, and it’s when…we should prioritize evidence-based practices first, but if we don’t identify any relevant evidence-based practices, or the one or two evidence-based practices that we did identify ended up not working for particular students then promising practices are a very good next step that we can go to instead of just saying, “Well, I’ve no idea what to do next.” The other reason that something might not be identified as an evidence-based practice is that we have good research that show that it doesn’t produce meaningful positive effects or that it actually does harm. We don’t want to use that. It obviously wouldn’t be a promising practice. We don’t have enough evidence-based practices to address every situation for every learner. We’re going to have to go down to kind of a next level, which are promising practices, and I think that’s okay.
