The Edtech Evidence & Integrity Pledge

“Educators who use edtech say they do so because they believe it supports their work with individual students’ learner variability. 93 percent call this an important or very important factor in deciding which edtech to use.”

-Learning in the 21st Century: How the American Public, Parents, and Teachers View Educational Priorities and How to Achieve Them

Do you agree? Sign the Promise!

The Research-Based Product Promise is a campaign to bring high-quality education technology (edtech) products to each unique learner. Our mission is to demand edtech products that use research to design learning experiences that attend to the needs of the full diversity of learners.

Join the movement! By signing the Research-Based Product Promise, you demonstrate your commitment to edtech products that incorporate research in their design and development. Your signature on this promise calls for edtech products that:

1. Regularly consult Learning Sciences Research¹

We demand edtech products conduct regularly scheduled literature scans and, when appropriate, landscape analyses to remain well-informed and up-to-date on the most recent Learning Sciences Research. We demand edtech products incorporate new, relevant strategies discovered through research to support each learner.

2. Ground product design and development in rigorous research

We demand edtech products that are grounded in rigorous Learning Sciences Research. We demand edtech products use theoretical frameworks to guide and drive design and development to ensure instructional decisions are based on research findings about how students learn.

3. Provide transparency about the research driving product design

We demand edtech products share the Learning Sciences Research findings that guide product design and development in formats that are easily accessible. We commit to championing the notion that education leaders, educators, and families should have access to the research that guides product design and development.

4. Design at the margins to support diverse learners

We demand edtech products focus on research that emphasizes the voices and experiences of learners who have been marginalized to identify and incorporate features into products that support the full diversity of learners.

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^{1. Learning Sciences Research is an interdisciplinary, research-based field that studies how people learn, often to identify strategies to better support learners.}

Thank you for your partnership in ensuring each learner has access to edtech tools built based on high-quality research and designed for the diverse range of learners represented across districts and states. The Edtech Evidence & Integrity Pledge is a campaign to bring high-quality edtech products designed to meet the needs of the full diversity of learners to schools, districts, and states across the United States. Please follow the link below to sign the pledge, also described on this page.

School, district, and state education leaders and practitioners drive decisions about the edtech tools learners access throughout their educational experiences. We commit to prioritizing edtech tools designed to create powerful, inclusive, and evidence-based learning experiences for our students.

We Pledge To:

• Prioritize edtech tools designed based on high-quality research on learning. This entails, among other expectations, requiring edtech companies to have a logic model informed by peer-reviewed, empirical evidence.
• Prioritize edtech tools that partner with educators to iteratively improve the product to meet authentic classroom needs.
• Prioritize edtech products that have earned product certifications, including Research-Based Design, Learner Variability, and Practitioner-Informed Design to ensure the product was designed to support impactful learning.
• Require edtech companies to demonstrate how the tool was designed to support the diverse learners represented in my education system. For example, we will ask questions such as:
  • How do you provide support for English learners and students with disabilities?
  • How do you minimize harm for Black and Latine learners and learners experiencing poverty?
  • How were historically and systematically excluded learners involved in the design and development of your product?
  • How do you disaggregate efficacy research to identify and improve gaps in support to diverse learner subpopulations?