What makes a high-quality instructional material? Ideally, empirical data on student learning should be used to determine the effectiveness of instructional activities and materials. Often, however, such data are not available, making it necessary for educators to estimate as carefully as possible a material’s potential to help students learn. Project 2061’s curriculum-materials analysis procedure can be used to predict the likely effectiveness of a material based on two measures of quality. One measure used in the procedure considers the content alignment of the material: the degree to which it addresses the ideas students are intended to learn. The second measure considers the material’s instructional quality: the likelihood that it will support effective teaching and student achievement of a learning goal.
