TY - JOUR AU - Nielsen, Klaus AU - Klitmøller, Jacob PY - 2021/10/11 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Measured lives in educational psychology JF - International Review of Theoretical Psychologies JA - IRTP VL - 1 IS - 1 SE - Theoretical psychology and measured lives DO - 10.7146/irtp.v1i1.127080 UR - https://tidsskrift.dk/irtp/article/view/127080 SP - AB - <p>Why is the work of educational researcher John Hattie’s work so popular today? This is the question we will try to answer in this paper. Based on a very large empirical database, Hattie calculates the effects of numerous educational interventions and factors influencing student achievements. Despite documented methodological flaws in his work, Hattie’s work keep attracting the attention of policy makers, teachers and educational researchers all over the world. We propose to understand thepopularity of Hattie’s work in relation to the ongoing debate about the legitimation of schooling – using Habermas’ (1976) work Legitimation Crisis as point of departure. Our claim is that Hattie is offering a theoretical synthesis of effective teaching as a way to legitimize modern schooling. However, there are a number of problems with this synthesis, most notably that it does not include the pupils’ intentions for participating.</p> ER -