My wife is an active, publishing education researcher who is currently doing in-classroom research related to technology. It's really hard to make random contr

My wife is an active, publishing education researcher who is currently doing in-classroom research related to technology. It's really hard to make random control groups because schools want to put kids in classrooms by their process, not the whims of the researchers. IRBs won't let this happen in actual classrooms. The allowed approach is typically extracurricular summer schools where everyone is aware of the research component. But this is only for a certain kind of quantitative research. Qualitative research doesn't necessarily need nor benefit from a control group as it can be carried out in situ. Isn't it worth the effort to do the research instead of just seeing what happens when venture-backed companies introduce their for-profit wares into the classroom?