Effect Sizes and Additional Months of Gain:  Can't We Just Agree That More is Better?

Effect Sizes and Additional Months of Gain: 
Can't We Just Agree That More is Better?
Robert E. Slavin
 
In the 1984 mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, there is a running joke about a hapless band, Spinal Tap, which proudly bills itself "Britain's Loudest Band."  A pesky reporter keeps asking the band's leader, "But how can you prove that you are Britain's loudest band?" The band leader explains, with declining patience, that while ordinary amplifiers' sound controls only go up to 10, Spinal Tap's go up to 11.  "But those numbers are arbitrary," says the reporter.  "They don't mean a thing!"  "Don't you get it?" asks the band leader.  "ELEVEN is more than TEN!  Anyone can see that!"

In educational research, we have an ongoing debate reminiscent of Spinal Tap. 

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