Evidence Reports

Wested (September 2024) posted an RCT of ASSISTments, a low-cost online tool that assists 7th graders with math independent practice (e.g., homework) and gives teachers real-time reports on student performance. This high-quality RCT found a sizable gain (~31% of a grade-level) in math scores on the state test at 2 year follow-up.

CAPR (December 2024) published RCT findings for MMA, an approach widely used by community colleges to place incoming students into college-level versus developmental (i.e., remedial) courses. This large, high-quality RCT, conducted in Wisconsin and Minnesota, found little impact on student success at the 4.5-year mark.

CAPR (October 2023) published results of a New York RCT of Multiple Measures Assessment (MMA) – a data analytic tool used by community colleges to place incoming students into college-level versus developmental (i.e., remedial) courses. Despite the mostly positive portrayal of results in the study’s abstract, it found negligible impacts on the preregistered primary measures of student success at the 4.5-year mark.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in January 2025, published an RCT of HUD’s $140 million/year Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program, which provides case management services and financial incentives to housing voucher recipients to promote work and self-sufficiency. This large, high quality RCT found no discernible impacts on employment or earnings over 6 years.

SSRN (October 2024) posted long-term RCT findings for Sourdun, a French “Boarding School of Excellence” for middle and high school students from disadvantaged communities. This high-quality RCT found a remarkable 14 percentage point decrease in the high school dropout rate and 16 percentage point increase in graduation from higher education, 9-12 years after study entry.

New England Journal of Medicine (June 2024) published an RCT of Communities that Heal, a data-driven program that engaged communities in four states to rapidly deploy evidence-based practices to reduce opioid overdose deaths. This large, high-quality RCT found no discernible impact on opioid overdose deaths over 1 year.

Annenberg Institute (January 2025) posted a comparison-group study of a California program to train teachers in the “science of reading.” Despite the study abstract’s claims of positive effects, the study found no discernible impact on 3rd grade English Language Arts (ELA) achievement in its primary analysis.

Quarterly Journal of Economics (Nov. 2024) published an RCT of Sit-D, a police training program teaching the value of developing multiple perspectives on a situation. Despite the study’s claimed effects on officer performance in the field, it doesn’t report findings for most of its preregistered primary outcomes, preventing any reliable conclusions about program effectiveness.

AERA Open published long-term RCT findings for Early Colleges in North Carolina (providing grade 9-13 students an opportunity to earn an associate degree or college credit during high school). Despite claims of large effects in the study’s abstract, its primary finding was a modest effect (2.4 percentage points, near statistically significant) on the rate of bachelor’s degree completion at the 10-year mark.