TCA Lectures Define evaluation. Differentiate between internal and external examination. Critically analyze the process of evaluation in Pakistan. BEd

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Evaluation is a systematic determination of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any other intervention or initiative to assess any aim, realisable concept/proposal, or any alternative, to help in decision-making; or to ascertain the degree of achievement or value in regard to the aim and objectives and results of any such action that has been completed. The primary purpose of evaluation, in addition to gaining insight into prior or existing initiatives, is to enable reflection and assist in the identification of future change. Evaluation is often used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice, foundations, non-profit organizations, government, health care, and other human services. It is long term and done at the end of a period of time.

Differentiate between internal and external examination:

It is possible to have an examination that is not external. The end-of-semester test or exam for Year 12s is not unusual in Queensland schools under a system of school-based assessment. It has all the properties of an external exam except that it is set and marked by teachers in the school. School assessment in the form of an end-of-semester test could actually be called an internal exam because they have so much in common. Both are designed to function according to the definition of an examination: to assess “the attainment and skill of students in a particular subject, whether by objective-type or conventional written, oral or practical questions” and “all of the papers refer to a syllabus”. Typically, an external exam has a “paper” (or two) for a particular subject and the questions on the paper are unknown to students in advance of the exam. All students do the exam on the same day at the same time, with the same restrictions on equipment (e.g. pencil or pen and paper, calculator or not), and are given the same time to complete the exam (3 hours is the norm). The exam is closely supervised. The end-of-semester test that is part of the assessment program for some subjects in Queensland, and which has been labelled an "internal exam" above, has similar features although the exam might be of two hours' duration rather than three. The key difference is the locus of control. The point being made here is that the exam experience is not foreign to Queensland students. Nor is it associated with the senior public exams of the period from about 1890 to 1972. The same is the case for Queensland teachers unless they are older than 60 or were educated outside Queensland. It is worth mentioning here that the QCS Test is not an external exam even though it does have an external locus of control (set by QSA) and is administered under standardised conditions. But it is not subject-specific and based on a subject syllabus; it assesses cross-curriculum skills. It belongs to a family of tests that are developed according to some technical specifications not elaborated on here. An aspect of QCS Test pertinent to this discussion is that it is of seven hours' duration (over two days) compared with the two hours proposed for the new external assessment. In Queensland's current system of school-based assessment, teachers devise and mark the assessments – projects, reports, investigations, orals, artefacts, practical work, performances, presentations, essays, rich tasks, constructed responses, mid-semester tests and so on. The locus of control is internal (moderation brings an external quality assurance element – not relevant in this discussion) and the variation in assessment modes is vast. We use the term school assessment rather than school-based assessment to describe teachers-devised assessments and reserve the term school-based assessment for describing the system. School assessments have the capacity to provide evidence of student achievement that is not possible to obtain from an external exam. The point being made here is that a combination of School Assessment and External Assessment is more valid than one of those assessments alone. What is the external assessment in the review's proposed model? Is it the same as an external exam? Table 3 compares and contrasts the proposed external assessment and an HSC-like exam.

Process of evaluation in Pakistan: Evaluation in education always varies in different context. What may seem suitable in one context may not be appropriate in other context. Event the purposes and procedures of educational evaluation will vary from instance to instance. What is quite appropriate for one school may be less appropriate for another. Looking at the current Educational Evaluation in Pakistani context, it is observed that educational evaluation was practised at institutional level only and even that was not structured and organized. The Deans or the Administrative Heads applied various tools for course and faculty evaluation, even that appraisal varied in approach in-quality of tools. Program Evaluation was a rare practice and that was done by very few prestigious private sector universities. With the emergence of Higher Education Commission Pakistan, it was realized that a separate Quality Assurance Agency needs to be established for a structured Academic Evaluation. The Agency established Quality Enhancement Cells in Public and Private sector universities in a phase wise manner for conducting program evaluation through self assessment. At the same time, course evaluation and faculty evaluation were also added to program assessment along with other feedback tools.