Evidence-Based Policymaking in Education

Decisions made by education policymakers determine how schools and teachers are organized, and how students learn. In the era of evidence-based policymaking, education policymakers face pressure to use research to inform their decisions. This paper explores the mental models that policymakers use when integrating research evidence in their policy decisions. I conduct survey experiments on education policymakers. First, I examine policymakers’ preferences for research evidence. Using a discrete-choice experiment, I present policymakers with a series of research studies that vary along attributes of internal and external validity. They are asked about their preference between pairs of research studies as they make a hypothetical policy decision, requiring them to make trade-offs between different study attributes. Second, I explore what policymakers believe, what information they seek out, and how they update their beliefs about the effectiveness of education policies. I elicit policymakers’ predictions for the effect of an education policy in a particular setting. Then, I conduct an information experiment to study how policymakers update their beliefs in response to new information from researchers and from peers. Together, the results of my study will help us better understand how evidence-based decisions are made by education policymakers.