Has John Hattie really found the holy grail of research on teaching? An extended review of Visible Learning

Abstract

In this article the author reviews and discusses John Hattie’s book Visible Learning. In this book Hattie presents the results of a meta‐meta‐analysis on the conditions of successful teaching and learning in schools. Hattie’s work is based on more than 800 meta‐analyses, and these meta‐analyses are substantiated by more than 50 000 empirical research studies. Among the six groups of factors influencing successful learning in schools—student, home, school, teacher, curricula, teaching—the factor ‘teacher’ seems to have the strongest effect. Hattie not only evaluates empirical research but also places the results in a theoretical context of a theory of teaching and a certain concept of teacher professionalism. The author discusses Hattie’s approach to combine empirical research and conceptual work on teaching and on teachers’ work. The limits of meta‐analyses and future meta‐meta‐analyses are pointed out.

Keywords:

• teachers
• teaching
• successful learning
• meta‐analysis

Notes

1. http://www.visiblelearning.co.nz/asttle/pageloader.sapx?page=1184d123d0d0 (accessed: 23 March 2010).

2. There are currently new studies and reviews devoted to the question of the identifying effects of teacher education that Hattie could not integrate into his book. These studies show that there are some effects of teacher education (Floden and Meniketti 2005; Kennedy 2008; Kennedy et al. 2008). For a discussion of the current state of research on teacher education as mirrored in three representative handbooks see Terhart (2009).

3. The project COACTIV (Baumert et al. 2010) has proved that the content knowledge of mathematic teachers and their pedagogical content knowledge together are important for the quality of their teaching. Higher levels of knowledge in both these fields lead to increased learning gains on the part of the students.

4. The classic works by Dunkin and Biddle (1974), Gage (1978), and Brophy (2000) are concentrated dominantly on teaching and not on its contexts.

5. ‘asTTle’ is the acronym for Assessment Tool for Teaching and Learning (http://tki.org.nz./r/asttleabout_e/php) (accessed: 8 April 2010)

6. In a current presentation Hattie indeed uses the concept of ‘total learning’ (Hattie 2010).