Conceptions of the Evaluation of Pupils’ Achievements, Considered in the Light of the Analysis of Selected Programmes for Early-School Education

Abstract

The aim of the research presented here was to find out about the evaluative criteria and methods proposed by authors of early-school education programmes. The analysis focused on thirteen selected program mes presented on the website of the Centre for Educational Development, created within the framework of projects competing in a competition for the elaboration and pilot-stage implementation of innovative teaching programmes and didactic structure (1/POKL/03.03.04/2013). The research sought to answer the following questions: What is the legal basis for descriptive evaluation? What evaluative functions, kinds, forms and criteria appear in integrated teaching programmes? Which programmes suggest modelling evaluation? What is the subject of a pupil’s evaluation? What methods, techniques and tools of collecting information about pupils are suggested by the teaching programmes’ authors? The programmes analysed presented a huge variety of conceptions of evaluation. Some of them proposed performing an initial diagnosis of children’s development, as well as a diagnosis of pupils’ needs and possibilities. Some programmes did contain clearly-defined criteria of evaluation, such as would constitute a basis for descriptive evaluation, yet proposals for the evaluation of (pupils’) behaviour were few and far between. Some of the programmes presented exemplary methods, techniques and tools for diagnosing and evaluating pupils’ development and competences, and their dominant form of intelligence. Most programmes revealed a preference for modelling evaluation – something in line with what is favoured by contemporary educational constructionism, as it engages the pupil in the learning process, imparting to the latter reliable and comprehensive information about how to learn as efficiently as possible.