Problems of Values and Measures in Evaluation of Teaching

THE PROBLEMS of evaluation of teaching rest upon a question of view point. That this is true at the point of defining goals is broadly recognized. That it is also true at the stage of select ing and developing methods of evalua tion is more likely to be only vaguely realized or missed altogether. Perhaps it is safe to say that we can look for sig nificant insights to those situations where there is conscious awareness of the need for a consistent framework of values, in this instance, a clearly defined concept of the teacher's role, to be applied at all stages of evaluation. In the practical world, the problem is obvious: whether a training school's opinion of a student is home out after he is teaching is often, in large measure, dependent on which superintendent of schools is judging the teacher. In systematic research, how cor rect a scries of predictions proves to be is, to an important degree, a function of whether the criterion measures are con ceptually coordinate with and relevant to the predictive variables. In the brief space of this paper, I should like to illustrate, from practice and research, the problems encountered and the pattern of solutions adopted (tentatively to be sure) in a program of evaluation which proceeds from a view point and attempts to operate consist ently within it. 1 The impact of John Dewey's social philosophy for a democracy moved the goals of education toward emphasis on active participation in the learning pro'cess. independent and responsible think-, ing and functioning and a creative-con structive relation between the individual and the group. Later, the psychodynamic interpretation of human behavior con tributed other dimensions to these goals: the interdependence of the processes of emotion and learning, the importance of the teacher-child relationship as proving ground and prototype of interpersonal relationship experience in general, the adaptation of content and methods of curriculum to the changing needs, drives and conflicts associated with the succes-. sion of stages of maturity. Out of the amalgam of these major in fluences, two basic goals can be formu lated and staged very briefly. First, it is' the goal of education to help the child