The stage of evaluating and interpreting results

Even at this stage, at least two sequences can be recognized – partial phase stages. The first of these, in the final analysis of performance, the teacher has to carry out, in a relatively short period of time, a vastly consuming analysis of student performance. At this stage, the overall student performance is evaluated. The teacher should approach this activity with maximum responsibility, while being aware that the evaluation is formative for students (which means that depending on the attitude of the teacher towards the evaluated student is forming his character towards further study, or himself) and also opinion-forming for teachers (meaning that based on what position the teacher takes regarding evaluation and the student, the other students in the class will share the opinion). It is therefore quite natural for the teacher evaluation to also involve other students (thus the teacher applies the method of peer review). That’s not used as an alibi, but in order to have his/her ideas established in his, or the other way round, perhaps the views of the students in the class made him re-evaluate his/her initial decision. Here

the teacher can give the students space to express themselves, therefore applying the method of autonomous evaluation.

The second micro segment of this phase speaks of expressing an evaluation decision. The decision is made by comparing the current status of the evaluated students with their past status and the state required by the criteria (Gavora 2010, 19). The teacher uses the standard specified by the educational program as the main criterion. The verdict may be communicated towards the students in almost any form of evaluation. This is mostly done in the form of quantitative evaluation, specifically classification, simply by a grade. It can be enriched by verbal comments, simply the teacher’s reasoning. This is also associated with non-verbal expressions of the teacher that the student perceives intensely and multiply the final result (effect) of the evaluation. One of the most effective forms of educational evaluation is verbal evaluation to which I hereafter devote more space.

Verbal evaluation

Classification expressed through grades has been a proved and extensively executed evaluation in our schools. It is not possible to talk about the complete absence of the word evaluation, since it existed – at least theoretically – as a side feature of classification in the form of verbal reasoning of grades, praise, encouragement or negative verbal expression. When looking for the advantages of classification it has been emphasized that this is a “traditional way of evaluating students, which has buried itself deeply in our thoughts and has become a classic. It satisfies practical needs. Mathematical expressions of benefit corresponding to modern requirements of time (possibility of the automated processing of results).

A serious problem is the lack of clear criteria for grades in classification, but on the other hand, grades are an important criterion for evaluating the success of students (teachers, schools), although apparently they do not correlate with success in life.

Grades often tempt to “non-teaching accounting”, i.e. averaging, rounding, and “percentomania” when the teacher’s personality disappears and hides behind the almighty grade.

While the teaching process is dynamic, the grade is undoubtedly static. In relation to students a great lack of classification is in particular that it does not express the individual differences between them, it is not possible to see the differences of dependency among the influencing factors.

Grades also affect the social atmosphere in the classroom. They enact social inequalities between students; in addition, many of them see them as a source of fear, stress, tension, injustice and resistance to learning. This is proved by a “prominent” place in child neuroticism, as well as a relatively high number of child suicides, many of them happening due to grades.

An argument against classification is the fact that grades had been promoted to the main learning objective. The real learning objectives become secondary and all efforts were directed towards students ‘exchange’ of knowledge for good grades, which continues to exist in many families as their benefits were “sold”

parents. Focusing on grades has become one of the main causes for the loss of the original denotation of teaching – orientated towards the development of knowledge.

Verbal evaluation may be characterized as “quite specific – describing the evaluation based on the content of teaching, indicating the mastering of educational objectives. Verbal evaluation thus does not only evaluate the work of the student, its

task is to show how (and why) certain results have (or have not) been achieved.

Verbal evaluation should take into account that the cognitive abilities of students (e.g. understanding, observing, memorizing, language expressions, reproductive and creative thinking, etc.), as well as their attitudes towards work in general and especially school work, interests, individual and social behaviour. It should also take into account the physical and medical characteristics of students (unless they influence their success at school in some way), as well as the peculiarities of the school, for example tougher conditions, shifts, and so forth.

The basic features of verbal evaluation

1. Verbal evaluation should specifically label what the students know and what they do not know, what their abilities are and how to use them. This verbal score becomes much more consistent than the harsh classification. The teacher, applying an individual approach to students to separately evaluate their work, praises them for their good performance, tells them where they were wrong, and advises on how it can be corrected. An important requirement is to evaluate student performance immediately, with a minimum interval, because it is the time when the effect has the highest rating.

2. The overall spirit of evaluation should always be encouraging. The teacher should begin evaluation with what the student has mastered the best, for which knowledge s/he can be proud of. Not only what the student knows well, but also what they did for improvement and for their self-development should be appreciated. After that can the teacher mention what the student mishandled, and this

“criticism” should be followed by an optimistic outlook to the

future. This approach is consistent with the humanistic approach, with the so called rejection acceptance technique.

3. With verbal ratings the so called social relation standards must be avoided, where the performance of an individual student is compared to the performance of other students in the class.

4. Evaluation should always include a comparison of where the student stood at the beginning of the year and the progress s/he performed during the period. This is a recording of a student’s performance and the use of the individual relational standards where teacher “evaluates the performance of individual students compared with their performance history, i.e. breakthrough times in intra-individual development.

As to the actual ‘act’ of evaluation, it is not appropriate in our opinion, if the first person who evaluates (mainly the verbal performance of students) is a teacher, and students can only (dis) agree with the statement of evaluation, respectively repeat it or give their approval or disapproval of it. They will be much more attentive to the statements of their classmates (and their own) if they know that they will be evaluating (they will be evaluated by their peers).

A big contributing part is the fact that the teacher is a great authority in the eyes of a student, who s/he does not want to contradict.

Therefore, we believe it is more appropriate if the student is initially rated by peers. Then the evaluated student should be able to express his/her own opinions to make room for a possible controversy and ultimately the students’ discourse would be reviewed by the teacher.

S/he would, as appropriate, correct any mistakes that were committed in the students’ evaluation or repeat the agreed evaluation criteria.

We consider the student’s written opinion as the appropriate form of self-evaluation.