Why Evaluation Is Needed
Why Evaluation Is Needed
The preliminary stage
- Experiences were already checked against criteria from psychology and against the objectives.
- This preliminary check is not an adequate appraisal.
Why a fuller check is needed
- The criteria are general, not precise statements of exact conditions.
- Real teaching adds variables: learner differences, the environment, the teacher’s skill and personality.
What evaluation actually is
- The process of finding how far the experiences, as developed and organized, produce the desired results.
- It identifies strengths and weaknesses and checks the validity of the program’s hypotheses.
Tyler’s fourth question is the one a curriculum cannot afford to skip: how can we determine whether the purposes are being attained? Having formulated objectives and selected and organized experiences, a developer still does not know whether any of it works. Evaluation is how they find out.
The preliminary stage is not enough
Some checking has already happened. When experiences were selected, they were checked against criteria from educational psychology and practical experience, against the objectives, and against important psychological principles. This can be called a preliminary stage of evaluation.
But it is not an adequate appraisal of the experiences planned for curriculum and instruction, for two reasons. First, the criteria used are general principles that apply to the generalized characteristics of experiences; they are not precise statements of the exact conditions needed for the desired learning. Second, and more important, actual teaching introduces many variables the plan could not control:
- Individual differences among learners.
- The conditions of the learning environment.
- The teacher’s skill in setting up the planned conditions.
- The personality characteristics of the teacher.
Because of these, there is a need for a more inclusive check: whether the plans for learning experiences actually guide the teacher to achieve the outcomes desired. That is the purpose of evaluation, and the reason a process of evaluation is necessary after the plans are developed.
To check whether the plans actually guide teachers to the desired outcomes in real classrooms
The preliminary check used general criteria. Real teaching adds variables like learner differences, the environment, and the teacher’s skill, so a fuller, more inclusive check is needed.
What evaluation actually is
Evaluation can now be defined precisely. It is the process for finding out how far the learning experiences, as developed and organized, are actually producing the desired results. It is a reality check on the whole plan.
The process does several things at once. It identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the plans. It checks the validity of the basic hypotheses on which the instructional program was organized and developed, the assumptions that this content and these experiences would produce that learning. And it checks the effectiveness of the particular factors at work: the teacher, the materials, and the other conditions used to carry out the program. In doing so, it lets a developer see in what respects the curriculum is effective and where it needs improvement.
Whether experiences produce desired results, and the validity of the program’s hypotheses
It identifies strengths and weaknesses, checks the assumptions the program rests on, and tests the effectiveness of the teacher, materials, and conditions, showing where the curriculum needs improvement.
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