If education were to become a science and an art, it must develop means of determining with accuracy the degree and kind of all the changes which it brings about. Teaching becomes more productive when followed by an accurate appraisal of its results.
The teacher cannot of course determine accurately how much he has contributed to the education of the pupil at the onset of his teaching.
Various studies have shown that opinions on all types of educational outcomes are unreliable. The more objective and refined the measures of educational products, the greater are the possibilities of determining and putting into effect improved educative procedures.
The success or failure of the teacher in applying the principles which have been discussed in this book is evaluated by the growth and development of the children. Of course, it is also possible that the validity of the principles which we sought to establish may be called in question by the same sort of evaluation.
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Teaching is, after all, the adaptation of our methods to the normal growth and development of boys and girls whose growth can be evaluated in terms of knowledge, habits, skills, abilities, attitudes, reasoning, and the like.
According to the Dictionary of Education, “evaluation is the process of ascertaining or judging the value or amount of something by careful appraisal.” To Wiles, “evaluation is the process of making judgments that are to be used as a basis for planning.
It is a procedure of improving the product, the process, and even the goals themselves” In education, the terms refer to the step taken in directed study in which the teacher and the pupils appraise the progress made in the study of a subject or unit.
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Likewise, the term evaluation also refers to the process of determining experimentally or subjectively the merits of a test on the basis of such characteristics as validity, objectivity, ease of administration and scoring, adequacy of norm, availability of duplicate forms, and ease of interpretation; Evaluation is closely related to educational measurement.
However, it is a far more inclusive concept than measurement. “Measurement” implies the use of standardized tests, the results of which are expressed in quantitative terms.