Table of content :

• ASSESSMENT
• EVALUATION
• LEVELS OF EVALUATION
• CHOOSING THE METHOD
• TOOLS OF EVALUATION
• CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD EVALUATION
• EVALUATION METHODOLOGY

Education is incomplete without Assessment and Evaluation.

Assessment:

Assessment is a fact finding activity that describes conditions that exists at a particular time. It describes the progress students have made towards a given educational goal at a point of time, mainly used to collect quantitative data.

Evaluation:

Evaluation adds value judgment to assessment. It estimates the worth of the process or programme in order to reach meaningful decisions about that process or programme. Thus, it a a qualitative measure of the prevailing situation.

Levels of Evaluation

Kirkpatrick’s Levels of Evaluation

Choosing An Evaluation Method

Tools of Evaluation

Let’s see the various tools and technique for an effective evaluation.

1) Testing Procedure

A formal testing that is intended to measure the student’s knowledge, skill aptitude, physical fitness, which can be administered formally or informally in the following ways :

a) Written Test – A test that are administered on paper or on a computer.

• Multiple Choice
• True/ False
• Matching
• Fill in the blank
• Essay – Short / Long

b) Verbal Test – Which is also know a mental test, it consists of items measuring vocabulary, verbal reasoning and comprehension.

• Spelling
• Grammar
• Word group
• Analogies
• Sentence completion
• Verbal deductions
• Instructions
• Critical Resoning

d) Practical Test – Students performs a visual enactment of a particular activity and teacher observes and rates the students performance.

e) Performance test – It involves students in performing various activates through the teacher evaluates.

• Oral presentation
• Dance / movement
• Lab demonstration
• Sports competition
• Dramatic reading
• Enactment
• Debate
• Musical recital
• Projects

2) Self reporting or Self Evaluating techniques

In this the children evaluate themselves.

a) Questionnaire :  Questionnaire consist of a set of pre-determined questions, by which the factual information about the children is known and the children are able to understand themselves.

b) Autobiography : This method helps the child to write about themselves and they understand where they stand and which area needs improvement.

c) Interview : Interviews are good at producing data which deal with topics in depth and in detail.  The teacher is likely to gain valuable insiges based on the depth of the information gathered.  It can be a structured or non-structured interview.

d) Personal diary / Portfolio : It is collection of evidences of students’ work over a period of time. In which, the students demonstrate to other his/her learning and progress. It provides a cumulative record or a picture of how a skill or knowledge area develops emerges.

3) Observation Method

It is observing with a specific objective, but without giving any inputs.  The student is exactly observed in the given situation. There is no possibility of bias. Here no body influences the behavior of the child.

a) Anecdotal Records – Notes written by the teacher regarding the student’s unique behavior across time, to establish patterns and causes.

b) Checklist – A list of response categories that respondents check if appropriate.

c) Rating Scale – It is a set of categories designed to elicit information about a quantitative or a qualitative attribute.

Types – Numeric rating , Graphic rating, Comparative scales

d) Sociometry – We identify the child’s social relationship. It measures relatedness among people.

Types – Sociogram, Sociometric Matrix, Social Distance Scale, Guess who Technique

4) Projective techniques are a method of understanding the inner world of the individual.

a) Association Test – Sight words / flash cards / jumble words – are given to the students to associate it.

b) TAT – A theme is shown and asked to the students what actually comes to the childs mind. We all could have seen the clouds and we assume it to be some animal / bird image from that.

c) Ink Blot test – We all would have done this in our childhood.  Dropping few ink on the paper, floding it and when we open it, we can see some image or picture in it.

d) Story completion test – once strory is narrated. The sequesce of the story is shuffled and the child is asked to arrange in a proper order.

e) Sentence completion test – Giving a hint – and the child is asked to develop a story or complete the sentence.

f) Make a Picture story test – where the child is asked what does the story interpret.

The answers in such test will not be same, each students will have a different story and interpretation.

So far we have seen all the tools and techniques of evaluation.  Now, lets see what a good evaluation tool must have. It should have a good –

• Validity
• Reliabitly
• Usability

a) Validity

• Quality of a tool enables it to determine what it was designed to determine.
• Validity is always concerned with the results of a test and not to the test itself.
• Validity is a specific and not a general quality.

b) Reliability

• It is the quality of consistency that the tool maintains over a period of time
• An estimate of reliability always refers to a particular type of consistency.
• Reliability refers to the results obtained with as evaluation instrument and not to the instruction itself.

c) Usability

• The tool must be practicabiliy accplicable.
• The should be not be expensive and time consuming.
• Evaluation tool should be easy to interpretation and comparable.

Evaluation Methodology

You need to select the methods of evaluation according to educational objectives and domains to be evaluated.  Below are different evaluation methods for each educational domains.

Cognitive Domain

Written Test

• Objective type
• Subjective type

Oral Test

• Observational rating scale
• Questionnaire

Affective Domain

• Direct Observation
• Rating Scale
• Checklist

Psychomotor Domain

• Direct observation
• Practical test
• In real situation
• In simulation condition

So, we have identifies or evaluated the students using the various toos and techniques. Now what is the next step?  Based on the performance and rating, we are now able to identify where the child needs improvement or where is the gap and where we need to focus on.

Looking at the gaps, we need to identify whether the child is slow learner or under achiver or having a learning disabilities. And we need to find out the remedial teaching strategies to fill the gaps.  Which is the main aim for evaluation.

Hope, this post was useful for the you and I would try to write about the various remedial strategies for the students with learning disabilities.