APPROACHES TO EVALUATION

APPROACHES TO EVALUATION

 

A.      Background

 

Planning and teaching a language course needs approaches to evaluation which it could be planned and developed by language programs and language teaching materials. This overall and interlinked system of elements (i.e., needs, goals, teachers, learners, syllabuses, materials, and teaching) is known as the second language curriculum. However, once a curriculum is in place, a number of important questions still need to be answered. These include:

1.       Is the curriculum achieving its goals?

2.        What is happening in classrooms and schools where it is being implemented?

3.        Are those affected by the curriculum (e.g., teachers, administrators, students, parents, employers) satisfied with he curriculum?

4.        Have those involved in developing and teaching a 

5.        Language course done a satisfactory job?

6.        Does the curriculum compare favorably with others of its kind?

Curriculum evaluation is concerned with answering these above questions. It focuses in collecting information about different aspects of a language program and understand how the program works, how successfully it works, enabling different kinds of decisions to be made about the program, such as when the program responds to learner’s need, whether further teachers training is required for teachers working in the program, or when students are learning sufficiently from it.

B.      SCOPE

Thus, the paper will cover on the Evaluation focuses on many different aspects of a language program (Sanders 1992,; Weir and Roberts), such as:

1.       Curriculum design

2.       The syllabuls and program content;

3.       Classroom processes;

4.       Materials of instruction;

5.       The teachers;

6.       Teacher training;

7.       The students;

8.       Monitoring of pupil progress;

9.       Learner motivation;

10.   The Institution;

11.   Learning environment;

12.   Staff development;

13.   Decision making.

The Scope of evaluation has changed from a concern with test results to the need information collection and make judgments about all aspects of the curriculum, from planning to implementation (Hewings and Dudley-Evans 1996). The points that will be discussed in this paper are as follows :

a.       Purposes of Evaluation:

·         Formative evaluation;

·         Illuminative evaluation;

·         Summative evaluation.

 

b.      Issues in Program Evaluation:

·         The audience for evaluation;

·         Participants in the evaluation process;

·         Quantitative qualitative evaluation;

·         The importance of documentation;

·         Implementation;

 

C.      Procedures used in conducting evaluations:

·         Tests

·         Comparison of two approaches to a course;

·         Interviews;

·         Questionnaires;

·         Teachers written evaluation;

·         Diaries and Journals;

·         Teachers’ records;

·         Student logs;

·         Case study;

·         Student evaluations;

·         Audio or video recording;

·         Observation.

 

d.      Discussion questions and activities:

 

e.      Appendix            Examples of Program Evaluations:

·         Example 1: Evaluation of a primary English course in an EFL Country;

·         Example 2: Evaluation of courses in a private language institute.

 

C.      OBJECTIVES

 

We hope this paper can give an insight on approaches to evaluation with Focus from test results to the need to collection information and make judgments about all aspects of the curriculum, from planning to implementation.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

DISCUSSION

 

 

 

A.      CURRICULUM EVALUATION

The aim of this part of Curriculum Evaluation is concerned with answering questions such as :

·         Is the curriculum achieving its goals?

·         What is happening in classrooms and schools where it is being implemented?

·         Are those affected by the curriculum (e.g., teachers, administrators, students, parents, and employers) satisfied with the curriculum?

·         Have those involved in developing and teaching a language course done a satisfactory job?

·         Does the curriculum compare favorably with others of its kind?

It focuses on collecting information about different aspects of language program in order to understand how the program works, and how successfully it works, enabling different kinds of decisions to be made out the program.

Evaluation may focus on many different aspects of a language program, such as:

·         Curriculum Design: to provide insights about the quality of program planning and organization;

·         The syllabus and program content: how relevant and engaging it was, how easy or difficult,

how successful tests and assessment procedures were;

·         Classroom Processes: to provide insights about the extent to which a program is being    

implemented appropriately;

·         materials of instruction: to provide insights about whether specific materials are aiding

student learning;

·         the teachers: how they conducted their teaching, what their perceptions were of the program, their perceptions of it, and how they participated in it;

·         monitoring of pupil progress: to conduct formative (in-progress) evaluations of student

learning;

·         learner motivation: to provide insights about the effectiveness of teachers in aiding students

to achieve goals and objectives of the school;

·         the institution : for example, what administrative support was provided, what resources were used, what communication networks were employed;

·         learning environment:  to provide insights about the extent to which students are provided with a responsive environment in terms of the educational needs;

·         staff development: to provide insights about the extents to which the school system provides the staff opportunities to increase their effectiveness;

·         decision making: to provide insight about how well the school staff principles, teachers, and others – make decisions that the result in learner benefits.

 

 

A.1. According to Weir and Roberts (1994):

ü  to examine the effects of a program or a project

ü   Program development:to improve two major purposes for language program evaluation, program accountability and program development, such as:

 

1.       FORMATIVE EVALUATION

·         To find out what is working well, and what is not,and what problems need to be addressed;

·         Ongoing development and improvement of the program;

·         Some typical questions that relate to formative evaluation (p. 288);

·          To address problems and to improve.

Example 1:

·         Situation: task-oriented communicative methodology

·         Problem: teachers are resorting to a teacher-dominated  drill and practice mode of teaching during the implementation. 

·         Solution: provide videos to model teaching strategies

Example 2:

·         Situation: to implement integrated skills

·         Problem: different perceptions of what the major points in the course  (after few

weeks)

·   Solution: to held meetings to review teachers’ understanding and to clarify the      

weighting as well as to provide peer observation.

                                Example 3:

·         Situation: to implement Conversation Skills

·         Problem: a number of students have persistent and major pronunciation problems that the course is not addressing (four weeks after the course).

·         Solution: to refocus one section of the course to include a pronunciation component. Individual diagnostic sessions are held with students who have the most serious pronunciation problems, and laboratory work as well as classroom time is allotted to systematic pronunciation work for the remainder of the course. 

 

 

2.       ILLUMINATIVE EVALUATION

 

§  Another type of evaluation can be described as Illuminative Evaluation. This refers to evaluation that seeks to find out how different aspects of the program work or are being implemented.

§  Otherwise, Illuminative Evaluation seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the processes of teaching and learning that occur in the program, without necessarily seeking to change the course in any way result. Some questions that might be asked within this framework are:

a.       How the students carry out group work tasks? Do all students participate equally in them?

b.      What type of error-correction strategies do teachers use?

c.       What kinds of decisions do teachers employ while teaching?

d.      How do the teachers use lesson plan when teaching?

e.      What type of teacher student interaction patterns typically occur in classes?

f.        What reading strategies do students use with different kinds of texts?

g.       How do the students understand the teacher’s intentions during a lesson?

h.      Which students in a class are most or least active?

Example 1:

·      Situation:

A teacher is teaching a course on reading skills and has developed a course which focuses on wide variety of reading skills, such as skimming, reading for details, surveying a text, critical reading, and vocabulary development. The teacher is interested in finding out what the students perceived to be the main point of the course. Students complete a short questionnaire at different times during the course in order to describe their perceptions of what the course is seeking to achieve.

·      Evaluated Way: conduct a short questionnaire;

 => understand students’ opinion and need. It means the learners’ perceptions of a course may reflect what they are most interested in or what they feel they need most help with at a particular point in time.

 

                                Example 2:

·         Situation: A teacher is interested in learning more about teacher-student in her own classroom. She invites a colleague to visit her class and to carry out a series of classroom observations. The observer is given the task of nothing how often the teacher interacts with different students in the class and the kind of interaction that occurs. 

 

·         Evaluated way: to invited colleague to do the classroom observation

=> assess what happened during the course. From the data collected by the Observer that the teacher was able to assess the extent to which the teacher or the students control classroom interaction and got better understanding of how the teacher used questions to “scaffold” lesson content.

 

Example 3:

·      Situation:  A teacher wants to know how students carryout group work and whether he is sufficiently preparing students for group-work task.

·      Evaluated Way: record and review the recordings.It means the teacher arranged to record different groups of students carrying out a group-work task and reviewed the recordings to find out the extent to which students participate in group discussions and kind of language they use.

        => know what kind of roles for each member in a group and make sure students

participate actively.

Ø  Much classroom action research or teacher inquiry : it can be regarded as a type of Illuminative Evaluation.

Ø  Block (1998) : interview learners regularly, it means to find out how they interpret what is going on in a course.

Ø  Richards and Lockhart (1994): describe a piece of classroom action research (classroom observation, learner journals, and interviews) The teachers found the successful learners had identified a number of helpful learning strategies that they applied in different ways, there are some questions about their classes as below:

§  What learning strategies were used by successful learners in their classes?

§  Do the learners use English outside of the classroom?

§  Do they feel good about learning English?

=>it was useful to confirm and make explicit some things which we knew intuitively. We have learned a useful strategy to use in order to more effectively facilitate our students’ learning. The teachers collected the information on two learners over a term, using classroom observation, learner journals and interviews. In helping to remember things they had studied, the children gave these examples:

- It is easy to remember when you listen

- I do it ever and over again

- I practice with my friend and family

- I stick sentences on my wall in my room

- I spend lots of time going over with my books because I like it and I learn. I would

still study it if my teacher didn’t see it or  mark it.

 

 

3.       SUMMATIVE EVALUATION

Ø  Summative Evaluation is used to determine the effectiveness of a program, its efficiency, and to some extent with its acceptability

Ø  Used “after” a program: it take place after program has been implemented and seeks to answer questions such as these below;

Ø  Some typical questions (p. 292):

a.       How effective was the course?

b.      What did the students learn?

c.       How well was the course received by students and teachers?

d.      Did the materials work well?

e.      Were the objectives adequate or do they need to be revised?

f.        Were the placement and achievement tests adequate?

g.       Was the amount of the time spent on each unit sufficient?

h.      How appropriate were the teaching methods?

i.         What problems were encountered during the course?

Ø  There are many different measures of a course’s effectiveness and each measure can be used for different purposes. For example:

a.       Mastery of Objectives: “How far have the objectives been achieved?”

It is one way of measuring the effectiveness of a course.

For example: in a course on speaking skills.

So the Objective might be: In group discussions students will listen to and respond to the opinions of others in their group. The extent to which the students have mastered this objective at the end of the course can be assessed by the teacher’s observing students during group discussions and recording on a scale the extent to which they listen and respond to opinions.

BUT mastery of objectives does not provide a full picture of the effectiveness of a course. It means Objectives can be achieved despite defects in a course. Students may have realized that the teaching or materials were poor or insufficient and so spent a lot of extra time in private study to compensate for it.

 

v  Performance on Tests:

a.  Formal tests, these are probably the commonest means used to measure achievement. Such tests might be unit tests given at the end of each unit of teaching materials, class tests or quizzes devised by teachers and administered at various stage throughout the course, or as formal exit tests designed to measure the extent to which the objectives have been achieved.

b.  Weir (1995): it is helpful for teaching and learning. They can help in the making of decisions about needed changes to a program. Such as which objectives need more attention or revision.

c. Brindley (1989): informal methods; reports, however, that in programs he studied in Australia, teachers preferred to rely on informal methods of ongoing assessment rather than formal exit tests.

BUT Weir (1995) stated that summative evaluation and for the development of progress-sensitive performance tests for use are necessarily during course;such as:

v Measures of acceptability:

◎satisfactory achievement of the objectives and  good levels of performance      

on exit tests ≠ teachers and learners’ opinion;

◎ should be considered some factors: time-tabling; class size, choice of materials,

or teachers’ teaching styles.

 

v Retention rate or reenrollment rate : A measure of a course’s effectiveness that may be important from an institution’s point of view is the extent to which students continue in the course throughout its duration and the percentage of students who reenroll for another course at the end. If there is  a significant dropout rate, is this true of other courses in the institution and the community or is it a factor of a given course only?

 

v Efficiency of the course: one of the success of a course is how straightforward the course was to develop and implement. The time spent on planning and couse development the need for specialized materials and teacher training, and the amount of time needed for consultations and meetings.

 

4.       ISSUES IN PROGRAM EVALUATION

Weir and Roberts (1994,42) propose a broad view of evaluation that is characterized by:

v Insider and outsider commitment and involvement to ensure adequate evaluation;

v The “product value” of a program or project or their components;

v A deeper professional understanding of the processes of educational change, as well as the results of that change;

v Systematic documentation for evaluation purposes both during implementation and the beginning and end of a program or project’s life;

v A willingness to embrace both quantitative methodology appropriate to the purpose of the evaluation and the context under review.

So these principles raise the following issues in the evaluation process.

5.       THE AUDIENCE FOR EVALUATION

It is important to identify who the different audiences are and what kind of information they are most interested in (Elley 1989). For example:

To develop a new textbook series for public schools funded by the ministry of education, officers in the ministry (who might not be specialists in language teaching), such as “money” which provided for the project is spent and when all components of the project (student books, teacher guides, and workbook) are available in schools by a specific date. Teachers: the sufficient materials for all the classes on the school time table. Outside Consultant: might be interested in the design of the materials Interaction and language practice. Vocational training centers: school leavers’ English. Therefore, evaluation has to satisfy all interested parties. Questions different audiences might be interested in are:

Students:

What did I learn?

How well did I do compare to others? 

How well will I rate this course?

 

Teachers:

How well did I teach?

What did my students learn?

Were my students satisfied with the course?

 

Curriculum developers:

Is the design of the course and materials appropriate?

What aspects of the course need replacing or revising?

Do teachers and students respond favorably to the course?

 

 

Administrators:

Was the time frame of the course appropriate?

Were the management and monitoring of the course successful in identifying and rectifying problems?

Were clients’ expectations met?

 

Sponsors:

Was the cost of the course justified?

Did the course deliver what was promised?

 

   Three Audiences are identifiable for all summative evaluation of language courses (Shaw and Dowsett, 1986):

a.       Other teachers in the program, for course design and planning purposes (the main audience);

b.      Managers of the institution or program, for the purpose of determining course offerings and placement;

c.       The Curriculum support or development unit, for the purpose of monitoring the curriculum.

The audiences need to be carefully identified and the results of the evaluation presented in a way that is appropriate for each audience.

                       

6.       Participants in the Evaluation Process

Two types of participants are typically involved in evaluation – Insiders and Outsiders. Insiders refers to teachers, students, and anyone else closely involved in the development and implementation of the program. Outsiders are others who are not involved in the program and who may be asked to give an objective view of aspects of the program. They may be Consultants, inspectors, or administrators.

Example: Formative evaluation: teachers

                    Summative evaluation: students

Why Insiders are important? Because they are the direct participants for a Curriculum.

                       

7.       Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluation

Quantitative measurement: something can be expressed numerically.

                                => collect information from a large number of people and analyze statistically

                                      more fair but some limitations.

                Qualitative measurement: something can not be expressed numerically and                                 => collect information from classroom observation, interviews, journal and so on     

                       more holistic and naturalistic but hard to analyze

                                   ◎ Combine both Quantitative and Qualitative

 

                        8.  The importance of Documentation

                             Relevant documentations:

     a) Course statistics: information on why students chose the course,   

          student numbers, attendance, class size, drop outs, use of facilities such as

          library or self-access center.

 

                                            b) Relevant course documents: Compilation of all relevant documentation about

                                                 the course. Such as descriptions, publicity materials, statements of aims,

                                                 objectives, and syllabus, course materials, teaching guides, newsletters,

                                                 newspaper articles, report of planning meetings.

 

                                     c) Course work: examples of tests, class assignments, examples of students work.

 

                                     d) Written comments : anything that has been written about the course by external

                                          assessors, teachers, learners, managers.

 

                                     e) Institutional documents: anything that is available about the school or

                                          institution, hiring policy, job description, need analyses that have been

                                          conducted, reports of previous courses.

 

                                     f) Course Reviews: a written account of a course, prepared by the teacher or

                                         teachers who taught the course.

 

9.         Procedures used in Conducting Evaluations

1. Tests

               1) institutionally prepared tests

               2) international tests

               3) textbook tests

               4) student records

-  Advantage:

     1) direct measure of achievement or performance

 

 

 - Disadvantages:

     1)   hard to make sure the tests are a direct of teaching or are liked to other   

            factors=> further investigation.

     2) “reliability and validity” problems. 

 

2. Comparison of two approaches to a course

   ＊ two different versions of the course

        => compare the effects of two or more different teaching conditions.

        -  Advantage:

            1) control all relevant factors and investigate strictly 

       -  Disadvantage:

          1) teachers’ load (maintain the difference at the same time)

 

  3. Interview

   ＊ could get many different views of the course

   ＊ structured interview is more useful

 ◎ Advantage:

     1) obtain more deeper (in-depth) information

 ◎ Disadvantages:

     1) time-consuming

     2) could not be generalized