ASPECTE PSIHOLOGICE ALE EVALUĂRII REZULTATELOR ŞCOLARE

Ionuţ VLĂDESCU Universitatea „Andrei Şaguna”, Constanţa, România

Rezumat

The evaluation process involves a number of activities: comparing, making approximations, and assessment. The verb TO EVALUATE can also have the following meanings: to examine, to make estimation, to umpire between parties, to judge, or to quote. We should keep in mind that the EVALUATION seldom indicates the accurate measurement; it is rather quantitative and qualitative approximation. At first glance the evaluation can consist in assigning values and judgements to certain objects or persons according to explicit or implicit factors. In this respect, the evaluation is the spontaneous activity performed by one specific person. Thus, the evaluation can often be found in our daily activities. Therefore, one can say that we make evaluations every single moments of our life, telling the difference between what is useful and what is not. In this case, the EVALUATION can be considered an activity that can be performed within various contexts; as result, it can have specific connotations. Currently, we are faced with certain social pressure regarding the evaluation of the child/student. The importance of evaluation process becomes more and more important and has large-scale recognition for the present-day educational reform. Daniel L. Stufflebeam and his research team made the synthesis of various definitions of evaluation. They propose three groups of definitions according to three possible equalities: 1) Evaluation = Measurement; 2) Evaluation = Con- gruency; and 3) Evaluation = Judgement. These equalities involve a number of advantages and disadvantages. 1) The definitions included in the equality Evaluation = Measurement have the following advantages: they are directly based on accurate measurement, are realistic and true, the data can be mathematically computed, all these resulting in clear norms and conclusions. The disadvantages of such definitions include the strictly instrumental approach, the lack of flexibility caused by the costs of producing new instruments, and the limited judgements and criteria such definitions are based on, which are issue-centered and eliminate or do not take into consideration the parameters that cannot be measured. 2) The definitions based on the equality Evaluation = Congruency are advantageous as they consider the integrated activities of the educational process, bring to light information regarding both the student and the educational program, the feedback comes fast, and there is direct reference regarding the inherent objectives and criteria that can bring forth data about the process and the final result. A number of disadvantages occur as well, e.g., the risk assigned by the eva- luator of playing his role in ethical manner, the approach is limited to certain objectives, the behaviour becomes the ultimate criterion of the educational action, and the evaluation is rather sequential and final. 3) The definitions belonging to the equality Evaluation = Judgement have the following advantages: they take into consideration facile practical concretizations, allow enhancing the variables taken into account, are permissive for expe- riments and expertise, and are not time-wasting for data analysis. On the other hand, such definitions are disadvantageous because they are based on routine and (empirically considered) their reliability and realistic character can be considered as problematic, the data and criteria are unclear, and there is the risk of superficial generalization.