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Essayevaluationfinal

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Mariell Millan
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Language instruction and evaluation.

Evaluation is known for being one of the most important elements when it comes to education
and the whole teaching and learning process. Most authors agree on the fact that this concept
refers to the process of gathering and judging information on the student’s academic
development. According to Ellington, Percival and Race (1988), the purpose of evaluation is the
interpretation of this collected data in order to measure the effectiveness, efficiency and any other
outcomes an educational program may have. Through the years, the purposes for evaluation have
widen, but its importance still lies on the fact that it has and it’s still being used to measure the
student’s progress and improvement. It allows both teacher and learner to identify weaknesses,
strengths and learn how to reinforce knowledge through assessments.

An assessment can be seen as an ongoing process that helps developing a deep understanding on
what students can do with their knowledge and it refers to the different types of methods or tools
that the teacher can use to achieve it. There are four types of assessment, the first one being
formative, in which activities are not graded, strengths and weaknesses are the main focus, and it
also provides feedback to improve students’ performances. The next one is called summative,
which measures and summarizes what students have learned and it occurs at the end of a course
or unit, which implies looking back and checking how well students have accomplished the
objectives. The following is the direct one, that is basically any method that require students to
demonstrate skills or knowledge to measure achievement. And the last one, indirect assessment,
which unlike direct, refers to methods that need reflection of student skills or knowledge rather
than a demonstration of it. It is important to highlight the fact that assessment is done during the
course while evaluation is done at the end of it, which means that the difference between them is
that the last one uses the assessment’s results to improve and support the learning and teaching
process development.

Evaluation also makes use of five principles that are essential: practicality, reliability, validity,
authenticity, and washback. The first one refers to the ability of selecting among different types of
assessment considering aspects like time or space. Validity is the degree to which an assessment
measures what it is supposed to measure, which includes how well a test can evaluate what has
been seen through the course and how reliable and valid the students think it is. Reliability
measures accuracy, which means that scores must be consistent, while authenticity evaluates if
the student is able to transfer the knowledge or skills that were developed in the classroom to
other types of contexts. Finally, washback refers to feedback provided by the teacher and the
effect tests have on instruction. All these principles are needed to get fair assessment because
they set standards and although teacher’s input is necessary, it is controlled and filtered by them,
making it objective, useful, and upright for the students’ learning process.

Throughout the course, we have learned that not only do teachers need to follow the five
principles, but they also need to consider some important aspects to decide when and how to
evaluate. Things like space, staffing, the school’s resources, or even the institutional policies play
an important role and can directly affect the way they should proceed. For example, when
developing and administering a test, the educator must consider the cost, time and ease of
administration and this leads us back to the principle of practicality, because an effective test is
practical. If these aspects were not taken into account, either the teacher or the students could be
affected, causing some issues and eventually damaging the whole teaching-learning process.
Likewise, when it comes to scoring, educators must reflect on how the grades will be interpreted,
for example, through a percentile rank or in relation to a mean, median, standard deviation.
References.

Capraro, R. M., Roe, M. F., Caskey, M. M., Strahan, D., Bishop, P., Weiss, C., & Swanson, K. W.
(2012). Research summary: Assessment. Association for Middle Level Education, 1-6.

Westminster College. (2021). What is assessment?. Retrieved from


https://www.westminster.edu/about/accreditation-assessment/definition.cfm

Physics catalyst blog. (2020). What is evaluation in education. Retrieved from


https://physicscatalyst.com/graduation/evaluation-in-education/

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