The Nature of the Evaluation Process. IIEP Seminar Paper 1

Seven major steps are outlined in this brief introduction to the process of evaluation: (1) Identification of the objectives of the educational enterprise. (2) Specification of the types of student behavior that reflect achievement of the objectives. (3) Construction of situations in which the student will be required or expected to demonstrate desired ways of behaving. (4) Determination of the criteria that will be used to assess the value, correctness, or desirability of the behavior elicited. (5) Administration of the measuring instrument--the tests, rating scales, situational performance tests, etc. (6) Scoring the responses elicited by the measuring instruments. (7) Judging the degree to which the scores obtained by the students reflect achievement of the educational activity. The author warns that misunderstandings about the function of evaluation arise from the failure to distinguish between summative and formative evaluation. The former comes at the end of an educational activity or project, while the latter occurs continually during the activity or project, with the aim of providing feedback to ensure that the appropriate aims and objectives are being met. (Author/MV)