We explain what evaluation is and how it is classified. We also explain its main characteristics and the objectives for which it is carried out.
What is an Assessment?
Evaluation can be conceived as a dynamic process, which It aims to analyze behaviors, attitudes, performances and achievements related to a series of objectives set a priori.
The word evaluation is applied in many areas and orders of life. As a thinking and reflective subject, one evaluates almost all the time the convenience of carrying out certain acts (buying this or that product; going out into the street with an umbrella; taking the subway or the bus; etc.), and It also evaluates one’s own behavior and that of others.In the school environment, the word evaluation is generally used as a synonym for examination.
We will focus on this characterization by comparing the traditional school evaluation (or “exam”) with what is today called “educational evaluation,” which is a broader concept.
See also: Remote evaluation.
Characteristics of traditional evaluation
- The parameters are established by the teacher, and do not always adjust to academic criteria or clear objectives.
- The performance of the evaluated person becomes a mere quantitative data (the “grade”)
- Its purpose is generally to define approval, as a “sieve” (some students “pass” the exam, others do not).
- The important thing is “the correct answer”, leaving the cognitive process that leads to the elaboration of that answer almost without weight.
- It has a design that gives more opportunity and weight to the appearance of weaknesses and errors than to achievements, which are punished instead of operating as engines of learning.
- The results of the evaluation are taken as definitive, thus discouraging the search for self-improvement, as there are no new opportunities for improvement.
- It operates as an instrument or mechanism of control and selection imposed from outside. It does not consider the teaching project and the characteristics of the group of students who participate in it.
- It is rigid, it takes place at specific times (= transversal), decided by the teacher, and it is done in the classroom only, through a single instance: the exam.
- It is designed and evaluated by the teacher, without taking into account the students’ own assessment and participation.
- Its sole purpose is to promote or not the student, it serves the “system”, not the “individual”.
Characteristics of educational assessment
- It attempts to gather useful information about the knowledge that students acquire through the different academic activities in which they participate.
- It gives more weight to the students’ strengths than to their shortcomings or weaknesses.
- Considers each student as a learning subject, with his or her own linguistic abilities, cultural competencies, levels of cognition, etc.
- It includes as a relevant part the reflection about learning as a process.
- It documents the student’s degree of progress and integrates it into a timeline, based on the resolution of pedagogically significant instructions.
- They usually require more time, both for the student to give the answers and then for the teacher to correct them.
- Students are invited to participate in the formulation of the assessment criteria, which in turn reflect what students perceive as important in the teaching-learning process. It is designed by the professor, in conjunction with the institution or department and, if possible, also with the students; the “correction” may be done by the professor or by peers.
- It must provide the elements for the teacher to be able to issue a personalized value judgment about the student, describing in detail his or her achievements and the aspects that still need to be worked on in order to improve. Thus, the evaluation operates as a reference for an individual starting situation and not as a fixed and universal “filter.”
- It is flexible, it is carried out throughout the entire course (=longitudinal) and not as a single instance. It offers several alternatives (exam, research papers, monographs, workshops). It can be developed in the classroom, at home, in the library, online.
- Its purpose is to review the course design and determine the degree of student progress.