Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement

by John Hattie

to think successively (as is required to decode words on a page, count in order) was the highest correlate.

Kuncel, Crede, and Thomas (2005) found that high school students had very accurate understandings of their achievement levels across all the subjects (r = 0.80+). This was the case for all but minority students who, while they received lower grades than non-minority students, were more likely to be less accurate in their self-estimates or self-understanding of their achievement.

achievement almost certainly also has a reciprocal influence on creativity

Programs with more hands-on activities had stronger effects than those relying on more passive methods such as videos or conceptual assignments.

The relationships of self-efficacy, self-concept, aspects of motivation, and persistence with achievement, however, are among the larger correlates.

agreeableness (d = 0.12), and conscientiousness (d = 0.44, see McCrae & Costa, 1997).

All correlations were small except for conscientiousness,

From 556 studies, they found a mean of 0.14 for the effects of formal schooling on subjective well-being, with larger effects on life satisfaction and lower effects on happiness

Although there is generally a stronger relationship between self-concept of ability and achievement, too often this is confounded because the self-concept of ability measures are more self-estimates of ability than self-concept of ability

a sense of confidence is a most powerful precursor and outcome of schooling.

It is particularly powerful in the face of adversity—when things do not go right, or when errors are made.

social cognitive theory, specifically that affective, cognitive, and environmental variables interact in a reciprocal fashion to determine human behavior”

This should hardly be surprising given the low covariance between self-concept and achievement.

Achievement is more likely to be increased when students invoke learning rather than performance strategies,

accept rather than discount feedback,

benchmark to difficult rather than t...

compare themselves to subject criteria rather than t...

effect self-regulation and personal control rather than learned helplessness in the academic situation.

Learned helplessness Harsh but fair

The willingness to invest in learning, to gain a reputation as a learner, and to show openness to experiences are the key dispositional factors that relate to achievement.

Children are moving anyway so discussion about pushing or pulling implies a false assumption of a static being.

He also challenged educators to seriously consider student demotivation caused by, for example, public humiliation, devastating test results, or conflicts with teachers or peers.

females have a slight tendency to attribute failure to luck.

They argued that students were becoming more cynical, and using more ineffective stress management strategies, and

it could be suggested that the increased emphasis on external accountability testing models has not helped.

Engendering a positive attitude to school work may be both a precursor to greater engagement, and a worthwhile outcome in itself.

Engagement in Kumar's (1991) meta-analysis was defined as the effective time within allocated science class that a student actively participated in learning—such as experimenting, attending, participating in discussion, questioning, answering, and taking notes. The overall effects were very high indeed (d = 1.09). Similarly, there were high relations between engagement and degree of concentration on tasks (Datta & Narayanan, 1989). Feltz and Landers (1983) showed that one way of enhancing concentration is to mentally visualize the processes and strategies involved in a task: students who mentally visualized various motor tasks were more effective compared to those that did not (d = 0.48).

Poster for Richards's sciemce class

These effects of engagement and concentration seem to be similar across ethnic groups. Cooper and Dorr (1995) found that there were no differences between African American and white students in their need for achievement, personal expectations, feelings of hopelessness, denial of the importance of individual effort, or lack of persistence.

Teachers need to consider methods to reduce anxiety, as it can be an important barrier to learning.

The relation between physical fitness and exercise on cognitive functioning is small but positive (Etnier, Nowell, Landers, & Sibley, 2006; Etnier

The effects came mainly from small positive effects on concentration and memory, and enhanced classroom behavior.

Contingency management

Cognitive behavioral therapy

academic interventions

parent training (d = 0.31).

etiology

the aim is to allow students to learn.

females outperformed males in agreeableness.

sex differences are virtually zero in verbal ability

fathers differentiate more than mothers between boys and girls. A meta-analytic

It certainly seems that maintaining a positive image of our cultural background is most worthwhile.

There are no differences in effect sizes for the amount of formal schooling (Willig, 1985, African American d = 0.18, white d = 0.16); the presence of fathers or not (Schneider, 1992, African American d = 0.25, white d = 0.25; Albanese & Mitchell, 1993, African American d = 0.24, white d = 0.22), social acceptance (Swanson & Malone, 1992, African American d = 0.75, white d = 0.98), and no differences in need for achievement (Cooper & Dorr, 1995, white d = 0.02 greater than African Americans for studies post-1970). The only difference related to small group learning (Evans & Dion, 1991, white d = 0.48, African American and Hispanic d = 0.97).

What seems more important is that students have a positive view of their own racial group, and that educators do not engage in the language of deficit theorizing.

children are in the program for up to 13 hours a week.

The best early predictors of achievement in these meta-analyses are attention distractibility, internalizing behavior problems, language variables, and tests of general cognitive functioning

There is little support for the widely held belief that involvement of parents leads to more effective early intervention (Casto & Mastropieri, 1986; Casto & White, 1985; K. R. White, 1986), although there is support for the claim, however, that those most in need (disadvantaged students, for example, students from lower socioeconomic areas, or minority students) gained the most (Collins, 1984; Harrell, 1983).

Nelson, Westhues, and MacLeod (2003) reported that the effects of these preschool programs were greater if students were in them for at least a year, and were particularly higher for minority students.

there are many opportunities throughout school to influence some of the key attributes, such as the willingness to engage in learning, the degree of reputation enhancement that a child can gain from being engaged in learning, the attributions of success to factors such as effort rather than ability, and the raising of positive attitudes towards learning.

openness to experience—which is one of the more powerful influences on achievement throughout schooling

seriation,

Understanding sequences

Many parents, however, struggle to comprehend the language of learning and thus are disadvantaged in the methods they use to encourage their children to attain their expectations.

Note home visit research