The educational role of evaluation: formative and shared evaluation in the university field

Abstract

Nowadays, we have a scenario marked by an increasingly complex and time-consuming formative model, which differs considerably from that which has been used until now. This raises the need to rethink, review and reconsider the teaching and learning model of today's universities with the aim of designing a new educational model that responds to the new emerging training needs that early twenty-first century society demands. These changes in the training model make it necessary to rethink the existing evaluation processes, which are going to be affected by strong changes. They are determined not only by the passage of the traditional emphasis put on the teacher and the education, to the importance that is given today to the lea rning and to the student as the centre of this learning process; but it also changes the purpose of evaluation, moving from the acquisition of a series of academic knowledge to the development of skills and gaining basic and more complex applied knowledge; but above all, it changes the role that evaluation has in improving these learning processes. The usefulness of the evaluation is not only in the ability that it gives us to verify the final performance of the student's learning, but that it should also serve as a training element, which is integrated into the teaching and learning processes from start to finish. Thus, the evaluation should serve not only to assess whether the student has assimilated knowledge, but also to guide their learning. This in-depth review of the evaluation process also involves thinking about the method and the actors involved in this process. So, against the punitive nature of traditional assessment carried out by the teacher who evaluates a group of students in an exercise of authority, it is necessary to think of alternatives that involve and engage students in their own evaluation process and, therefore, in their own training in order to achieve a lasting learning that will serve them throughout life. In this new evaluation model, the actor who assesses is not only the teacher, but all those involved have a responsibility to participate in the evaluation and self-assessment activities. In this way, evaluating is a shared responsibility, in which neither the teaching nor the learning are stopped. The student must participate in all activities to keep learning. Thus, the evaluation should be understood as a formative and shared activity between teachers and students. This will allow us to definitively know whether or not the teaching objectives, methodology used, resources, assessment, etc. are responding as expected or whether they have to be changed in time to get closer to the fixed goals. All this leads us to consider and to take into account in the process of teaching and learning not only the more technical aspect of evaluation, but also its more human, critical, reflective, formative and negotiating dimension.