Define EBP in special education and its criteria

Seven bullet points map directly onto the sections of the paper, and two of them carry most of the marks. Defining evidence-based practice in special education is the first: in this field the term is technical rather than complimentary. A practice is evidence-based when it has been evaluated in studies meeting specified design standards, across a specified number of studies and participants, with effects in a consistent direction. That is different from a practice that is popular, research-informed, or recommended by a respected practitioner. The second heavy bullet asks for the criteria themselves, and this is where a vague answer is most visible. Professional bodies in special education publish explicit thresholds covering research design, quality indicators, quantity of supporting studies and magnitude of effect. Name a specific set of criteria and cite it rather than describing evidence quality in general terms, because the bullet asks what the criteria are.

The resource bullets ask you to identify a database for locating EBP strategies and then explain what it actually contains — grade levels, domains or subjects covered, and roughly how many strategies are available. That is a request for concrete detail, so open the resource and look rather than describing it from memory. The What Works Clearinghouse is the obvious candidate because it publishes both the practice reports and the standards used to rate them, which lets you connect this section back to the criteria section. The application bullet is deliberately capped at two to three sentences, so resist expanding it. Finally, the formatting brief is specific: four double-spaced pages including references, a separate title page, a separate references page, and at least two scholarly sources beyond the course text. Four pages including references is tighter than it sounds once a title page and reference list are counted, so plan roughly half a page per bullet and write the introduction last.