October 2018

The Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) have launched the Registry of Efficacy and Effectiveness Studies (REES), which is a new tool for improving transparency and accessibility of education research.

Developed by SREE with support from the Institute of Education of Sciences, REES is a repository of information documenting the original design parameters for all causal inference studies in education and related social science fields. REES is designed to make it is easy to enter study design information for a range of study designs, including randomized controlled trials, matched comparison group designs, regression discontinuity designs, and single-case designs. 

“What distinguishes REES from other study registries is that REES is tailored to design language and practices commonly used in education and social welfare evaluations,” said Rebecca Maynard, president of SREE and co-primary investigator for the REES development project. “REES not only provides a central place to learn about ongoing studies and who is doing them, it allows users to delve into the design elements of studies that are critical to understanding the rigor and relevance of a particular study.”  

 “In addition to providing a public, citable reference for your study registration, REES also can serve as a repository for links to a variety of study products, such as presentations, data collection protocols, references to publications, and shareable data,” said Susan Leonard, co-investigator and project director at ICPSR.

SREE and ICPSR support research transparency, rigor, and relevance. Making study registration a routine part of the evaluation process is critical for transparency and is supportive of rigor and relevance. REES allows researchers to update an entry with design changes and/or outcomes and tracks the date of those changes so that users can see and better understand the changes that were made along the way.    

To learn more about REES or to register your study, go to https://www.sreereg.org/.