The Cheshire Cat’s grinning reply in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, widely used in management training, is often followed by the training course leader’s question “if you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?” It’s as simple and as complex at that! It is about strategic planning and purpose, so that fitness of, and for, purpose can be aligned and so that “what works” can be judged. Consider, then, not only of the current prominence accorded to the “what works” agenda in education, but, pace Brecht’s stylish parody in Arturo Ui, the resistible rise of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) within that agenda. The simple statement that where we want to go informs which path we take frequently seems to be lost on those who consider RCTs to be self-evidently the top of a mysterious tree or pyramid of educational research designs. They have no place there, nor are there hierarchies of research. Rather, fitness for purpose, so blindingly obvious, appears to have blinded the eyes of those who condemn to a pit of worthlessness any research that does not use RCTs, or who believe that the only path to salvation is an RCT. How ridiculous it is, in societies which proclaim their adherence to precepts and principles of diversity and inclusion, that so much store is set on RCTs alone, or, if their advocates deign to admit the presence of lower pond-life, on other less worthy methods. Heaven forfend that we use case studies, action research, small-scale research, careful observational research, and we damn with faint praise the use of qualitative research for anything apart from bolstering up RCTs with concomitant process evaluations. Perhaps we exaggerate for the sake of heuristic clarity. The point is that, just as in other walks of life, the “gold standard” has long been abandoned, opening the door to a range of other ways of ensuring quality and currency. There is no “one best way”, just as in science (to which RCTs appeal) there is no singular “scientific method” (St. Pierre, 2002; Thomas, 2016; Wrigley & McCusker, 2019). The four papers in this issue attest to diversity and inclusion, accepting that there are many paths to understanding “what works”. Weiss, Lerche, Muckenthaler, Heimlich, and Kiel, researching inclusive schools, use structural equation modelling to show that “the extent to which self-reported adaptive instruction is implemented by teachers depends, above all, on the teachers themselves, their characteristics, and their participation in joint activities”. Not an RCT in sight. Trinidad’s paper reports that “rising and stable high expectations increase the likelihood of entering and graduating from college. However, the opposite is true for those with falling and volatile low expectations.... These findings suggest the salience of expectation stability, and the need to help students sustain and manage their expectations”. Again, not an RCT in sight. Of course, experimentation should not be ruled out; rather, diversity and inclusion should be celebrated as they serve fitness for purpose. Experiments are but one out of many approaches in the arsenal of research methods. Hence, this issue includes the report on a “quasi-natural experiment” from Stöver, in which studying “the impact of a shortened schooling time on

中文翻译：

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许多是理解“行之有效”的途径

柴郡猫（Cheshire Cat）在刘易斯·卡罗尔（Less Carroll）的《爱丽丝梦游仙境》（Alice's Adventures in Wonderland）中被咧嘴笑了，广泛用于管理培训，然后是培训课程负责人提出的问题：“如果您不知道要去哪里，怎么知道什么时候到达那里？” 那既简单又复杂！它与战略计划和目标有关，以便可以调整目标的适用性和目的性，并可以判断“有效的方法”。然后，不仅要考虑当前在教育中“什么有用”议程上的突出地位，而且要考虑布雷希特在阿图罗·伊（Arturo Ui）中时尚模仿的步伐，在该议程中令人难以抗拒的随机对照试验（RCT）的兴起。对于那些认为RCT显然是教育研究设计的神秘树或金字塔顶端的人来说，我们想去哪里可以告诉我们经常走哪条路的简单陈述似乎已经迷失了。他们在那里没有地方，也没有研究层次结构。相反，对目的的适应性如此明显，似乎使那些谴责毫无价值的坑的人蒙蔽了双眼，这些人不进行任何不使用RCT的研究，或者认为唯一获得救助的途径是RCT。在宣称坚持多样性和包容性原则和原则的社会中，如此多的储藏仅仅依靠RCT来解决，或者如果其倡导者们希望承认存在较低的池塘生活，而将其置于其他不那么有价值的地方，这是多么荒谬的方法。天堂主张我们使用案例研究，行动研究，小规模研究，细心的观察性研究，除对RCT进行相应的过程评估之外，我们对定性研究在任何方面的使用都表示微弱的赞赏。也许我们出于启发式清晰的考虑而夸大其词。关键是，就像在其他各行各业中一样，“黄金标准”早已被放弃，这为确保质量和货币价值的其他方式打开了大门。没有“一种最佳方法”，就像在科学（RCT呼吁采用的科学方法）中一样，没有单一的“科学方法”（St. Pierre，2002； Thomas，2016； Wrigley＆McCusker，2019）。本期的四篇论文证明了多样性和包容性，认为有许多途径可以理解“行之有效”。Weiss，Lerche，Muckenthaler，Heimlich和Kiel正在研究包容性学校，使用结构方程模型表明，“教师执行自我报告的自适应教学的程度首先取决于教师自身，他们的特征以及他们对联合活动的参与”。尚未出现RCT。特立尼达大学的论文报告说：“不断提高的稳定期望值会增加进入大学和毕业的可能性。然而，对于那些期望值不断下降和波动性较低的人而言，情况恰恰相反。……这些发现表明期望值稳定的重要性，以及帮助学生维持和管理其期望值的必要性。” 同样，没有RCT出现。当然，不排除实验。相反，应当赞扬多样性和包容性，因为它们有助于达到目的。实验只是研究方法中众多方法中的一种。因此，本期包括Stöver的“准自然实验”报告，其中研究了“缩短上学时间对