Module 2: Purpose of Evaluation and Assessment (Notes)
Macro level assessment - A country wide evaluation or assessment.
Micro level assessment - Focuses on assessment at school level.
Why evaluation at Macro level
> To obtain feedback on programmes, methods, systems(new and continuing)
E.g. 7 years primary level, 3 years university, 4 years O-Level enough to ensure effective learning.
> Information to stakeholders.
E.g. Parents, employers, government need to know the level of education one has attained.
> Redefining the purpose of education. What is the purpose of primary school education? Is it about only knowing how to read and write or otherwise.
> Selection
~To place people to other levels e.g. Form1, form5, universities
~ Selection focuses on the upper profile in terms of examinations
> Placement
Some schools use assessment results to place students either in arts or science classes. Though this is not good for the betterment of the student’s future career aspiration.
> Certification.
E.g. Primary schools certificate, form four certificate, advanced certificate etc.
> Comparability
Comparison on quality of education with other countries e.g. Tanzania, Kenya etc.
> Employment decisions
Employers look for high performing students-high/good pass mark
> Promotion purposes
> Remedial classes or repetition
Micro level assessment
- Feedback to teachers and students in order to improve the teaching and learning process.
- Realism - How realistic was the teacher towards teaching since teaching is a planned process using syllabus, school work, lesson plan and notes. At the end of the term a teacher can evaluate him or herself to whether he/she adhered to them or not through examinations feedback
- Grouping people or students
i. Slow learners vs. fast learners
ii. Underachieving Vs. high achievers-For help
iii. The grouping can be:
- Within the class
- Between classes or streams-
A-For very intelligent
B-Bright, Middle
C-Lower
- By schools-Special schools
~ Normal schools
iv. If students are really gifted have to be helped to reach the highest on their potential.
v. Lower achieving need to be helped to achieve better.
- Readiness
How ready are your students for the next skills, help to identify whether students are ready to enter into the next level.
- Attainment level
Assessment helps to know the attainment level to be above, below or average. This can be obtained by calculating the mean. A normal curve will help to know if the test is fair.
- Going beyond normal
~ The high and low achievers
~ Find reasons for lower achievers
~ Find ways or opportunities to help high achievers
- Diagnosing, student’s problems, teacher’s effectiveness
- Specific difficult areas
~ To identify difficult areas for more help.
- To identify Special needs students for more help
~ Visual, auditory problems etc.
Models of evaluation
There are two levels of models:
1. Macro level model - we look on the education system at large
2. Micro level - School or Classroom level assessment
1. Macro level model or Cipp model
C – Context
I – Inputs
P – Processes
P - Product
A. Context
- National and international climate supporting the education system e.g. is the education system self supportive or otherwise e.g. TZ 40% of the budget comes from outside so one can evaluate the effectiveness of the education system to be successful or not e.g. SEDP and PEDP funded by World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Finance (IMF).
How is the internal or international climate economically capable of supporting the education system?
- Political stability: Is the political atmosphere of a country stable to support the growth and effectiveness of the education system?
- Cultural features: Are cultural norms and traditions supporting the education system?
- Economic Strength: Is the education budget sufficient to boost the education system?
- Intellectual climate: Are materials available e.g. books, journals.
B. Inputs
- Adequate budget for education
- Parents and community are they supporting education system
- Language of instruction is it user friendly.
- Culture
- Students readiness
- Physical infrastructures
- Administrative personnel
C. Process
- How effective and efficient is the teaching and learning process? Attitude of teachers towards their students. Attitude of students themselves towards learning etc.
- Order and discipline at school which enables smooth process of learning and teaching
- Is the curriculum well prepared, organized and covered?
- Is time to study sufficient to provide good outcomes?
- Is there regular evaluation and feedback to student and administration?
- Variety of teaching strategies during the teaching and learning process
Outcomes or product
Focus on system performance
Indicators of system performance
- Progression rate: e.g. from class 1-7 if the teaching and learning process is good students should move to finish the circle.
- Repetition rate: No need of students to repeat the class, if the system really functions well.
- Drop out rate: A good system should work hard to minimize student dropout rate.
- Pass rate: How many students pass the exam? How many get A, B, C, D?
- Participation rate: How many students are enrolled in terms of gender? E.g. at primary, secondary, university etc. and why?
- Completion rate: Do all students who started standard first year complete the course?
Micro level evaluation (classroom context)
Phases of Micro level evaluation
- Pre instruction: Before going to teach you should have pre requisite information on
> What do you need your student to know?
> How can you make your students to be interested with your course?
> How are you going to motivate them?
> How much time are you going to spend?
> Teaching and learning strategies to be applied should be pre determined; they need to be relevant to the subject matter.
- During instruction:
> Focus on students attention
> Focus on students’ understanding by asking them some questions giving them exercises etc.
> Response to students’ answers- design a way of the students to elaborate and clarify students’ doubts. Make a conclusion to what is the right answer.
> Helping special need students.
- Post instruction:
After finishing a module or topic you can provide a formative or summative test to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process.
Terminologies for evaluation procedures
Norm referenced measurement or evaluation: scores are interpreted in relation to the scores of a defined group normally called a normative group. How many students are below above or average normal.
Criterion referenced evaluation: scores are interpreted in terms of a clearly defined domain of learning task. Are the student capable of defining , explaining, demonstrating etc. a student in this case is competing with his own standards not with others.
Formative evaluation: done continuously during the whole process of teaching and learning to ascertain that students are following well the lesson. Monitors the learning process, provide continuous feedback to both students and teachers with regard to success.
Summative evaluation: designed to determine the extent to which the instruction objectives have been achieved. Done at the end of the unit of instruction or at the end of the course. Used for certification.
Diagnostic evaluation: help to discover the persisting difficulties left unsolved during formative evaluation. Aim at helping a student having a problem
Placement evaluation: is concerned with students’ entry performance and intend to check if the student possesses the knowledge and skills necessary for him/her to begin the program. This can also enable in suggesting placement of some students in advanced course of study or in special class or determine the teaching and learning activities to be used.
Maximum performance: deals with interpreting how well an individual is performing and how best can perform e.g. aptitude test which are designed to predict success in some future learning activities and achievement test which indicates the degree of success in the past learning activities.
Typical performance: focuses on what individual will do rather than what they can do. Focuses on identifying interest, attitudes and other personal habit. This is used for counseling students in their further education and vocation choice.
Instructional objectives
- Educational goals; are general aims or purposes of education that are stated as broad as long range outcomes the school is striving to achieve. Educational goals originates from national policies and lead to formulation of general school programmes.
Examples of educational goals includes:
- To develop inquiring mind
- To prepare self-reliant citizens
- To inculcate socialist thinking in young
- To understand the global climate change
What are instructional objectives?
Are statements that clearly define the desired learning outcome that are expected from teaching and learning process.
They show knowledge, understanding, application, thinking and performance skills as well as attitude to be gained by students as a result of instruction.
Instructional objectives are very crucial in communicating the purpose of instruction to students and teachers.
Furthermore, they provide a guideline for students’ evaluation.
Instructional objectives can provide a guideline to the teacher on the appropriate techniques and materials to be used during the whole process of teaching and learning.
Instructional objectives are sometimes termed as behavioral objectives or specific learning outcomes since they are more specific and explicit compared to goals which are too general.
Example by the end of the lesson each student should be able to: Define, explain, differentiate, draw etc.
Remember that;
Specific objectives per lesson can be more than one depending on the length of the subtopic for the day and the depth of the subtopic too, also age of learners.
The objectives should contain elements from both high and lower level as stated in the blooms taxonomy of educational objectives.
The objectives should not be stated in terms of what the teacher is going to do during the lesson but in terms of what the learner is expected to do by the end of the lesson.
Taxonomies of educational objectives
Entails the division of educational objectives into different three areas;
A. Cognitive domain: Includes knowledge outcomes and intellectual skills and abilities
B. Affective domain: Includes attitudes, feelings, interest, appreciation and mode of adjustment
C. Psychomotor domain: Includes perception and motor skills.
The three areas of behavior are further subdivided into sub-categories and arranged hierarchically, starting from simple sub-category and ending with complex ones.
i. Cognitive domain
- Knowledge Remembering
- Comprehension Understanding
- Application Applying
- Analysis Analyzing
- Synthesis Evaluating
- Evaluation Creating
ii. Affective domain
- Receiving
- Responding
- Valuing
- Organization
- Characterization
iii. Psychomotor domain
- Perception
- Set
- Guided response
- Mechanism
- Complex overt response
- Adaptation
- Organization
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