There is a movement towards a more complete use of assessment than the mere award of a final grade or a pass certificate. This involves a much more participatory approach to evaluation, where learners either assess themselves, or each other.
There are a number of different forms of this type of assessment:
— Reflective journals and diaries (very useful, but difficult to encourage learners to express their personal feelings rather than purely intellectualizing their thoughts for the benefit of the teacher/examiner; also time consuming for teachers to read – students could submit short excerpts for feedback and/or for marking).
— Visualized responses (Likert scales; dislike strongly, dislike, neutral, like, like strongly, ‘dots on charts’, posters with presentations…).
— Success stories (useful, but may be misused, by individuals or organizations, as self-publicity).
— Attendance at classes.
— Post-course and pre-course retrospective evaluation (how do the learners compare their own state of knowledge A complex construction of information and individual experience with an interrelatedsocial and environmental dimension. (N.B. many different interpretations of knowledgeexist, and this is one preferred in this Toolkit) after the course with their knowledge before the course began?).
— Case studies (also a good teaching method).
— Portfolio preparation (use of the learner ‘profile’, where both the learner, and those teachers and trainers who have come to know the learner can comment and provide indicators of performance over a long period, in many different areas of the learning programme).
Whichever methods are used, it is vital to have clear and agreed criteria for assessment. The more that learners are involved in identifying and negotiating these, the deeper the learning is likely to be. The fear exists in some institutions, however, that enabling students to select the mode of assessment and to be responsible with their peers, for carrying out much of that assessment, will lead to increased marks, and problems with accreditation and accountability to external bodies.
Learners need to learn about assessment and evaluation. Individual conditioning and group dynamics will influence the extent of openness and willingness of participants to be critical about themselves and others within the learning context.
Teachers and instructors need to model behaviour that does not reinforce traditional power relations, and they should attempt to help participants gain confidence as they embark on ways of assessment which are quite new to them. There may also be issues of culture, gender and language that must be addressed through open dialogue and sensitivity. Once again, facilitation of the overall learning process becomes a key success factor.
Tips for trainers:
— Give sufficient time to the development of skills and understanding by participants of assessment and evaluation; one-off or short courses make this more difficult to achieve. If short courses are necessary, try to run several over a period of time, so that participants build up their critical and reflective skills.
— Introduce the discussion on assessment and evaluation at the very beginning of any learning process.
— Include evaluation as an integral component of a programme design.
— Encourage participants to select and manage assessment processes as individuals and with their peers as much as possible.
— Involve and work with stakeholders at all levels of the system (giving special attention also to senior managers and administrators) when introducing innovative assessment or evaluation processes; their engagement will depend on the design and perceived uses of the evaluation.
— Use documentation as a means of sharing experiences and lessons learned from evaluation processes, in order to foster the application of learning.