In the 1990s, the definition of learning outcomes in instructional design saw a radical shift of attention from the specification of behavioral objectives to the formulation of the aims in terms of competences to be developed. Competences include skills and knowledge needed to adequately perform identified jobs and tasks, but they also comprise higher level abilities and social attitudes that are considered important in a given context or profession. These aspects cannot easily be measured through traditional examinations, let alone tests. However, evidence of competences can be collected from self-evaluation, peer evaluation, and observation by others.
Published in Chapter:
The Relationship Between Assessment and Evaluation in CSCL
Serena Alvino (Institute for Educational Technology, National Research Council, Italy) and Donatella Persico (Institute for Educational Technology, National Research Council, Italy)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 6
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-845-1.ch092
Abstract
In the educational field, evaluation is a very complex activity due to the intrinsically multidimensional nature of the processes to be evaluated. Several variables must be taken into consideration, and they interact and influence one another: the object and the goal of the evaluation determines the criteria, the methods, and the data to be used for the evaluation. In this chapter, we will focus on evaluation in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). In this field, a primary role is played by the monitoring process, which allows us to gather important information about the learning process while it takes place. Indeed, monitoring serves three purposes: it provides real-time data about group dynamics so that they can be used by tutors to facilitate learning and stimulate collaboration among trainees; it provides designers and evaluators with data about learning system usage that are needed to evaluate its effectiveness; finally, it supplies information about the learning process and its outcomes, thereby informing assessment. Hence, monitoring can be seen as a sort of common denominator between the methods used to foster collaborative learning and those that allow the gathering of data for the two types of evaluation.