ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the understanding of the means-end relationship in evidence-based practice (EBP). Means and ends belong to the core of what makes agenda work, situated in a cluster of concepts that are central to the EBP debates such as goals and their formulation, effectiveness, causation, instrumentality. In EBP, causes and effects are placed in an instrumental framework and it takes new roles as means and ends, respectively. Education has a difficult and ambiguous relationship to means-end reasoning. On the one hand it is at the heart of practical pedagogy, on the other hand educators have leveled much criticism at it and some have suggested it be rejected altogether. The criticism that hit educational technology also hits means-end pedagogy and now rubs off on EBP. Both advocates and critics take the means-end relation of EBP to be causal.
