The aim of this study is to establish a theoretical viewpoint for the evaluation of educational evaluation theories and to give a critical reflection on the theories of performance assessment according to the viewpoint. The evaluation of the competing ...
The aim of this study is to establish a theoretical viewpoint for the evaluation of educational evaluation theories and to give a critical reflection on the theories of performance assessment according to the viewpoint. The evaluation of the competing theories of educational evaluation heavily depends on the presupposed standards and viewpoints. we considered on the values of the theories of performance assessment as educational evaluation theories, in view of the two key ingredients: the objects and the standards of the assessment.
Being recently considered and highlighted, the theory of performance assessment in school are expected to present a better theory of educational evaluation. But there still remains the necessity to examine whether the improvements could be regarded as fundamental ones in view of the objects and standards of evaluation, which are the necessary requisites of the educational evaluation.
To prove some merits as a theory of educational evaluation, it is required for the discussions on performance assessment that they retain some concepts on the education in order to answer the question: what is the education First, the discussions on performance assessment preassume the equality, ‘education=schooling’. This viewpoint falls to the situation of synonyms, where the two terms are used for the schooling. This waste of terms results in the confusion as if the meaning of education was explained, while no explanations were given.
Also, we find the functionalism playing an important role in the discussions of performance assessment, which regards the education as being defined by listing several functions of the educational activity. By equating the education with everything that produces those effects, they over-extended the denotation of education. As a result, there happens a situation of homonyms where there are too many mutually different concepts of the education.
The viewpoint of the functionalists has a serious problem that it makes us blind to the substance of the education, since it does not present the connotative properties of the reference world of the education in a definitive way. It avoids the definition of the education via a vicious circle that the performance is the results of education and the education is a means for the performance.
Next, we considered on the standards of value as a necessary requisite of educational evaluation. We selected three topics for the dimensions of comparison to deal with the problem of the standards of value: the classes, the order, and the conflicts of values. On the problem of classes of value, we find that they lay stress on the value of performance(or knowledge) or on political, economical, social, and cultural values, giving little attention to the internal value of education. Regarding the problem of the order of values, they often consider the excellent performances of adults as the ultimate goal and appreciate the social successes and economical values, while they do not explain the differences of levels and the hierarchy in the educational activities. Finally on the problem of the conflicts of values that arise from the differences of levels of performance, they think as if the conflict could be dissolved by just presenting the standards of evaluation in the beginning, neglecting the fact that they can only be overcome at the end of education.
We can conclude that it is required that there should be a concise description of the reference world of the education and its innate value, in order that the performance assessment have its qualification as an educational evaluation. It is required that the performance assessment fix the educational performance as its object of assessment and set up the concrete criterium of evaluation to assess it, in order that it play an important and meaningful role as an educational evaluation.