Using the Results of Evaluation
Using the Results of Evaluation
Reading the results
- Results are an analyzed profile of present status, not a single score.
- Compare them with earlier results to see whether change is taking place.
The cycle of revision
- Identify strengths and weaknesses, suggest hypotheses for them.
- Check hypotheses, modify the curriculum, reteach, and see if achievement improves.
Other uses of evaluation
- Clarifying objectives, supporting learning, guiding individual learners, and reporting school success.
Gathering evaluation evidence is pointless unless the results are used. This final article is about what a developer does with the results: how to read them, the cycle of improvement they drive, and the further uses evaluation serves beyond fixing the curriculum.
Reading the results
An educational program has several objectives, and for each one several terms and descriptions summarize learner behaviour. So the results of evaluation are not a single score or a single description. They are an analysed profile indicating the present status of learners across the objectives.
A profile only means something in comparison. The scores should be comparable to those used at a preceding date, the previous term or year, so it is possible to see whether change is taking place. If a study of learners’ reading interest at the end of a period looks the same as before, the finding is that no appreciable change in reading interest is taking place. It is necessary to compare results from several evaluations, before and after a given period, to estimate how much change occurred. This analysis of results is the important step in improving a curriculum.
As a profile compared with earlier results to show change
Results are an analyzed profile of present status, not one score. Comparing them with the previous term or year, before and after, is what reveals whether and how much change took place.
The cycle of revision
Analysing results is valuable because it helps a developer identify the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum and suggest possible explanations, hypotheses, for the patterns found. Once hypotheses are suggested, the work becomes a disciplined cycle:
- Check the hypotheses against the present data and any additional data available.
- Confirm whether the hypotheses are consistent with all the data then available.
- Modify the curriculum in the direction the hypotheses imply.
- Teach the modified material to see whether learner achievement improves.
If achievement improves after the change, that suggests the hypotheses were likely explanations and that a basis for improving the curriculum has been found. This is why curriculum planning involves re-planning, re-development, and re-appraisal. The process is cyclical, and that cycle is what ensures the curriculum and instruction improve continuously over the years, rather than relying on hit-and-miss judgement.
Evaluation feeds re-planning, re-development, and re-appraisal
Results suggest hypotheses about strengths and weaknesses; the curriculum is modified, retaught, and re-evaluated. This loop drives continuous improvement instead of hit-and-miss judgement.
Other uses of evaluation
Improving the curriculum is the primary function of evaluation, but not its only one. First, because clearly defined objectives are a must for evaluation, evaluation is a powerful device for clarifying educational objectives that were not already clarified during development. Building the evaluation sharpens the aims.
Beyond that, evaluation serves four further uses:
- Evaluation and learning: it has a powerful influence on learning itself, on how learners study, and on teachers.
- Individual student guidance: it helps identify the needs and capabilities of individual learners.
- Continuous evaluation: it identifies areas of improvement for a group and for individuals, and supports planning programs of individual help in view of each learner’s progress.
- School success: it provides information about a school’s success to parents, since a school should be appraised by its effectiveness in attaining its objectives. These results must be communicated to parents in terms they can understand.
In short, an evaluation procedure must answer two questions: what changes are taking place among learners, and are we achieving our curricular objectives?
Guiding individual learners, and reporting school success to parents
It also clarifies objectives, influences learning and teaching, and supports continuous, individualized improvement. School-success results should be communicated to parents in terms they can understand.
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