What Works Clearinghouse: Statistics, Website, and Training (SWAT)
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is a leading federal source of evidence-based information about education programs, policies, and interventions that show promise for improving student outcomes. Through the Statistics, Website, and Training (SWAT) contract, AIR is assisting the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), in the U.S. Department of Education, in methodological discussions, training, and dissemination, and will help facilitate deliberations about the WWC Standards and Procedures across all WWC contracts. The other contracts focus mainly on K-12 and higher education topics. This work will include updating, maintaining, and improving the WWC website, which receives more than 3 million views per year.
The WWC offers a number of resources for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, including the following:
- Intervention reports, which summarize the effectiveness research on existing programs, practices, policies, and interventions to determine the effects on student outcomes. These reports can be accessed through the WWC’s Find What Works tool, which allows users to filter results by subject, student group, and other topics.
- Practice guides, which provide recommendations for educators to address challenges in their classrooms and schools around specific topics, including mathematics, reading, English language learners, special education, dropout prevention and more. These guides are based on reviews of research, the experiences of practitioners, and the opinions of a panel of nationally recognized experts.
- Reviews of individual studies, in which the design and execution of completed research is reviewed by experts to determine whether these studies meet the WWC’s rigorous design standards.
- Resources for researchers, such as methodological guidelines and training on rigorous research designs, which help to advance the field of education research.
