Studies in Educational Evaluation

Question: Describe the critical review on studies in educational evaluation? Answer: The main aim of this paper is to critically analyze the journal article Aligning formative and summative assessments: A collaborative action research challenging teacher conceptions by Marjan van der Wel, Renate Wesselink, Harm J.A Biemans, and Judith T.M Gulikers. The journal article was published on 20th march 2013 (Gulikers, Biemans, Wesselink and van der Wel, 2013). This research mainly deals with changing assessment concepts being developed by teachers towards changes in the curriculum concepts and also focuses on the facts that how they conceptualize and develop to implement such practices. Todays challenging teachers are aligning to the new outcome based assessment system. Critical analysis of issue and evaluation: The methods that were used to critically assess the outcome were based on the theory of National Summative Assessment Framework (Embretson, 2010). This highlighted that a curriculum should be followed which has a set of defined competency profiles that can provide with outcome results. Therefore it was criticized that this process had a very standardized approach and focused mainly on lower levels functioning and formulating assessment practices as well. In this method all teachers developed their own ways and means of evaluating assessments. There were no strict guidelines to be followed. But now it is suggested that to use collaborative action research so that teachers can develop them and translate theory into practical use. The previous assessment technique involved no educational innovations related to developing their own theoretical considerations. But this method has a broader aspect and caters to structural collaboration with assessment practices (Mui Lim and Rodger, 2010. In the article, some qualitative data has been gathered and analysis is conducted on the basis of those qualitative data. So the research is more subjective in nature. But it is also evident that the research process has been effective in evaluating the main aim of the research to some extent. But there has been some limitations like it did not answer whether the conceptions of the teacher actually changed. Here the ethical issue can be faced in terms of written consent of the participants in the study. It can be inferred from the research that this extensive study required an ordered structural guideline in order to process the assessment and evaluation part. It will be beneficial if the teachers can align the formative assessments along with their own conceptions that they develop in their own minds. This will throw a light on the broader management aspects as well. References: Embretson, S. (2010). Cognitively Based Assessment and the Integration of Summative and Formative Assessments.Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research Perspective, 8(4), pp.180-184. Gulikers, J., Biemans, H., Wesselink, R. and van der Wel, M. (2013). Aligning formative and summative assessments: A collaborative action research challenging teacher conceptions.Studies in Educational Evaluation, 39(2), pp.116-124. Mui Lim, S. and Rodger, S. (2010). The use of interactive formative assessments with first-year occupational therapy students.Int J Therapy Rehab, 17(11), pp.576-586.