Review of Reading Randomised Controlled Trials: Opening the Book, by R. Savage et al.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14507/er.v33.4679Abstract
This review examines Savage et al.'s Reading Randomised Controlled Trials as both a methodological account of a large-scale school-based intervention and a reflection on how educational evidence is produced. The book is analysed through its central motif of “opening”: opening the method and theory of the trial, the institutional negotiations that made the study possible, the protocol to teachers’ professional judgement, the uncertainty of the results, and the agenda for subsequent research. Particular attention is given to the authors’ treatment of randomised controlled trials as complex cultural and institutional activities rather than self-sufficient experimental designs. The review highlights the book’s strengths in methodological transparency, its integration of theory, implementation, and process evaluation, and its recognition of teachers as contextual and pedagogical experts. Despite some limitations, the volume offers a valuable account of the theoretical, political, professional, and institutional work that separates a promising educational idea from defensible evidence.
Author Biography
J. L. Queiroz, Federal University of Technology – Paraná
Jean Lucas da Silva Queiroz is a Brazilian educator and researcher whose career has unfolded across the very spaces this book brings into conversation: classrooms, teacher education, curriculum work, publishing, and educational research. Trained in Physics, Mathematics, Pedagogy, and Science Education, he spent several years teaching in basic education before moving more deeply into policy analysis and interdisciplinary research. His work addresses how digital platforms, public policies, and technical discourses reshape schooling, attention, responsibility, and student well-being. He combines critical policy analysis, discourse analysis, and WPR with growing expertise in educational microdata, psychometrics, and quantitative methods. What most animates his work is the effort to keep research answerable to the realities of teachers, children, and schools, while building evidence that can travel across classrooms, families, academic communities, and public policy without losing sight of the people who give it meaning.
References
Cartwright, N., & Hardie, J. (2012). Evidence-based policy: A practical guide to doing it better. Oxford University Press.
Pawson, R., & Tilley, N. (1997). Realistic evaluation. SAGE Publications, Inc.
[Book reviewed] Savage, R., Fox, A., Dawson, A., Gray, H., & Huxley, C. (2025). Reading randomised controlled trials: Opening the book. UCL Press. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10205218/1/Reading-Randomised-Controlled-Trials.pdf
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