Modern Education Evaluation Basics (Revised Edition)

Author: Wu Gang / Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: Educational evaluation types are categories formed by educational evaluations with common characteristics. They reflect the shared features of the same type of educational evaluation, allowing evaluators to choose appropriate evaluation types for different evaluation activities to achieve the maximum efficiency of the evaluation work.
I. Classification by the Scope of Evaluation
(1) Macro Educational Evaluation
This type of evaluation focuses on the entire field of education or macro-level educational phenomena, measures, and policies. Examples include evaluations of educational goals, educational structure, educational systems, and educational social benefits. It is comprehensive, overall, and strategic. This evaluation treats the social system or educational system as the evaluation subject, the interaction between education and society as the evaluation object, and the basis for value judgment is the extent to which education meets the needs of social development. It is an evaluation behavior for diagnosing, adjusting, and improving the educational system, aiming to adjust educational development strategies, improve educational work, adapt to social development needs, and promote the development and progress of the education system itself.
(2) Meso Educational Evaluation
This type of evaluation focuses on the internal work of schools. Examples include the level of school operation, operating conditions, leadership, teaching staff, as well as teaching, ideological and political work, physical and health education, general affairs, teacher teaching, headteacher work, team work, and parental work, etc. This evaluation treats the social educational evaluation institutions, school upper-level authorities, or the school system as the evaluation subject, and the internal work of the school as the evaluation object. The criteria for value judgment are the implementation status of educational policies, measures, and central tasks during a certain period, or the implementation status of certain laws and regulations, or the educational quality of the school. It is an evaluation behavior for diagnosing, summarizing, and improving the school system, aiming to improve school education work, enhance work efficiency, and promote the improvement of educational quality.
(3) Micro Educational Evaluation
This type of evaluation focuses on student development. Examples include evaluations of student academic performance, moral character, physical health, aesthetic taste, labor skills, practical ability, and innovative spirit. This evaluation treats school teachers as the evaluation subject and students as the evaluation object. The criteria for value judgment are the relationship between teaching and learning, marked by the development level of students' moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor education. This promotes educational reform and improves educational quality.
II. Classification by Value Standards
(1) Relative Evaluation
This type of evaluation selects one or more objects from the set of evaluation objects as value standards, then compares the remaining evaluation objects with them, or arranges all evaluation objects in a sequence using a certain method. This evaluation allows for comparison regardless of the overall status of the evaluation object set, helping to find the relative position of each, thus being highly adaptable and widely applicable, making comparisons easier. For example, norm-referenced evaluation involves teachers interpreting students' current performance by comparing them with the performance of other students in previous tests. These previous students are referred to as the norm group. When a teacher says a student "scored 90 percentile on an aptitude test," it means the student's test score is higher than 90% of the norm group. This allows each individual to understand their relative standing in the group, stimulating competitive awareness among those being evaluated, and is particularly suitable for quota-based selection. However, since this evaluation essentially involves "picking the tallest among dwarfs," the selected "tall" may not truly be tall. Therefore, the evaluation results may not reflect the actual level of the evaluated but only their relative position in the group, making it less objective. Additionally, regardless of individual effort or progress, they are constrained by the "few at the extremes, many in the middle" phenomenon, which may lead to intense, endless competition and demotivate some individuals.
(2) Absolute Evaluation
This type of evaluation determines an objective standard outside the set of evaluation objects and compares the evaluation objects with this standard during the evaluation, assessing the degree to which they meet the standard and making value judgments. For example, criterion-referenced evaluation does not rely on the performance of other students but on the actual mastery of the content being tested by the evaluated. This evaluation, due to its reliable objective standard, ensures scientific and accurate evaluation, making evaluators feel at ease and the evaluated trust it, maintaining psychological balance. After evaluation, the evaluated can grasp their actual level, clarify the gap between themselves and the objective standard, and be motivated to improve. However, absolute standards are also set and applied by humans, making it difficult to avoid subjectivity and ensuring complete objectivity, fairness, and rationality is challenging. Moreover, this method does not easily reflect an individual's position or progress in the group and is not conducive to creating a competitive atmosphere. As we know, the purpose of educational evaluation is to promote educational reform and improve educational quality, so absolute evaluation should hold a core position in educational evaluation. However, relative evaluation, which determines the superiority or inferiority of individuals within a group and establishes their relative positions, still has its unique significance. When implementing evaluation, it should be combined with absolute evaluation as the primary approach.
(3) Intracategory Evaluation
This type of evaluation compares each element in the set of evaluation objects between the past and present, or compares different aspects of a single element. For example, portfolio assessment, also known as portfolio evaluation. For intracategory evaluation, since it fully considers individual differences, it does not put pressure on the evaluated during the evaluation process. However, it also has significant drawbacks. First, since intracategory evaluation does not compare with objective standards or other evaluated individuals, it can easily lead to self-satisfaction and a narrow-minded view of one's own performance. Second, since the evaluation is based on certain value principles without standards or comparisons, it is difficult to be believed to be a true evaluation. Therefore, this type of evaluation is often combined with relative evaluation and absolute evaluation.
(4) Government Policies and Laws for Evaluation Work
In the heyday of Western educational evaluation, the government guaranteed the development of certain aspects of evaluation work through legal means. For example, the U.S. Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended in 1965, stipulates that the purpose of evaluation is to provide supplementary education for poor children, specifically requiring that the allocation of educational funds be based on the annual evaluation results of each school district. Appropriate standard tests should be used, with the scope determined by the goals set forth in the act. These policies and regulations laid a legal foundation for establishing a systematic evaluation system. In China, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China promulgated the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Reforming the Education System" in 1985, explicitly proposing the issue of evaluating education. The "Report on the Seventh Five-Year Plan" adopted by the Fourth Session of the Sixth National People's Congress on March 25, 1986, proposed: "Strengthen the management of the educational sector and gradually establish a systematic educational evaluation and supervision system." In the early 1990s, the release of the "Two Regulations" initially established the basic framework of the educational evaluation system. The "Outline of China's Education Reform and Development" promulgated by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on February 31, 1993, proposed strengthening the evaluation and inspection of the quality of education at all levels and types of schools. The "Education Law of the People's Republic of China," adopted by the Third Session of the Eighth National People's Congress on March 18, 1995, explicitly stipulated: "The state implements an educational supervision system and an educational evaluation system for schools and other educational institutions." The "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening Educational Reform and Comprehensively Promoting Quality Education," issued in 1999, also mentions the establishment of an educational evaluation system in multiple places. On November 8, 2002, Comrade Jiang Zemin, in the report "Building a Well-Off Society in an All-Round Way and Creating a New Situation for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics," pointed out: "Innovation is the soul of a nation's progress, the driving force for a country's prosperity, and the source of vitality for a party to remain vigorous." These will serve as the foundation for establishing China's systematic educational evaluation system.
II. The Degree of Government Decision-Making Departments' Need for Educational Evaluation
Establishing a systematic educational evaluation system requires high attention from government decision-making departments. In a decentralized country like the U.S., this is the case, and for China, which is centrally led, it is even more so. High attention reflects the demand status of decision-making departments for educational evaluation. The need is urgent, or it is not. The degree of government demand for educational evaluation is reflected at two levels.
(1) Demand for Educational Evaluation Work
The U.S. government invested huge sums of money in developing education and conducting evaluation work in 1958 and 1965, greatly promoting the development of educational evaluation. This behavior played a significant role in the development of educational evaluation from partial to overall, from single function to multiple functions, and from single evaluation object to multiple evaluation objects. In China, the rapid development of educational evaluation similarly reflects the high attention of government departments. It can be seen that the urgent need of the government for educational evaluation will prompt the government to invest a large amount of money to carry out large-scale evaluation work, thereby promoting the in-depth development of evaluation work. The in-depth development of evaluation will strongly promote correct decision-making or the improvement of work, encouraging people to recognize the true value of evaluation work. For evaluation work to be carried out regularly, it must be guaranteed by an evaluation system. Based on evaluation research and pilot practices, China promulgated the "Two Regulations" in the early 1990s, initially establishing the educational evaluation system, providing effective guarantees for regular evaluation work and laying a solid foundation for further establishing a systematic evaluation system.
(2) Demand for Establishing a Systematic Evaluation System
To implement scientific management of education, educational evaluation is an effective means. How to better use this means and ensure the normal conduct of evaluation work through institutional guarantees, the government should have a forward-looking awareness. However, the emergence of this forward-looking awareness is based on the continuous expansion of the function and enhancement of the role of educational evaluation. In the heyday of Western educational evaluation, the trend of continuously expanding functions and enhancing roles has become evident, and governments have taken solid steps to ensure the smooth implementation of evaluation work through legal means, laying a foundation for the future establishment of a systematic evaluation system. In the 21st century, China's educational evaluation will also form a trend of continuously expanding functions and enhancing roles, and the role of educational evaluation in the development of education will become increasingly prominent, making the government pay more and more attention to educational evaluation. This will generate the aforementioned forward-looking awareness, enabling the government to provide various conditions for establishing a systematic evaluation system and promoting its early establishment.
III. Steps for Developing Evaluation Criteria
(1) Drafting Preliminary Evaluation Criteria
As mentioned earlier, evaluation criteria can be divided into four types: scoring criteria, rating criteria, a combination of scoring and rating criteria, and descriptive criteria. Based on the evaluation purpose and the specific situation of the evaluation object, one type should be selected, or a combination of types should be used. When compiling criteria, the connotation of each indicator should first be analyzed to determine whether it can be expressed numerically or whether certain levels can be distinguished. If possible, assign appropriate numbers or determine the number of levels and assign labels. Otherwise, the essence must be described in language, with standardized phrasing.
(2) Argumentation for Drafted Evaluation Criteria
A cautious attitude must be maintained in the work of developing evaluation criteria. The drafted criteria should be reviewed by experts, and if necessary, pilot testing can be conducted on a small scale to improve the quality of the criteria.
(3) Seeking Public Opinion
The "public" here refers to individuals outside the draft and argumentation groups, especially those related to the evaluation work, such as the evaluated. The purpose of seeking public opinion is to make the evaluation criteria more perfect. Public opinion can generally be sought through methods such as holding seminars, interviews, and questionnaires.
(4) Finalizing and Piloting
After the preliminary draft of the evaluation criteria is determined, representative units should be selected for piloting. During the pilot phase, if any shortcomings are found in the criteria, they should be revised, and then the criteria should be promoted for wider use.