TRIALS testing new educational methods in schools often fail to produce useful evidence, according to researchers from the University of York (UoY).

The authors of the study, carried out by educational organisations in the UK and the US, argue that more research is urgently needed to understand why trials in the area are so uninformative.

Lead author Dr Hugues Lortie-Forgues, from the department of education at UoY, said: "Trials are an important way to allow policy makers and teachers to make informed decisions about how to improve education.

"However, many of these trials are currently not fulfilling their main aim of demonstrating which interventions are effective and which are not."Further research to investigate the reasons for this should be a priority."

Researchers evaluated 141 trials on a range of schemes involving one million students.