what is evaluation process in education

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Evaluation in Education: Meaning, Types, Importance, Principles & Characteristics

Let’s start with the definition of evaluation in this article before we delve into evaluation in Education, the meaning as well as types and its importance.

What exactly is evaluation?

Evaluation is a procedure that reviews a program critically. It is a process that involves careful gathering and evaluating of data on the actions, features, and consequences of a program. Its objective is to evaluate programs, improve program effectiveness, and influence programming decisions.

The efficacy of program interventions is assessed through educational evaluation. These often address the learning, such as reading; emotional, behavioral, and social development, such as anti-bullying initiatives; or wider subjects, such as whole-school system improvements such as inclusive education. Within the research community, debates have raged regarding methodology, specifically the use of qualitative approaches in evaluating program efficacy vs quantitative ones. There has also been significant political participation, with certain governments adopting stances on the sort of evidence necessary for assessment studies, with a focus on randomized controlled trials in particular (RCTs).

The initial goal of program assessment is to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. This can be done on a small basis, such as a school studying the implementation of a new reading scheme, but it can also be done on a big scale, at the district, school, state (local authority ), or national level. The availability of national or state data collections, such as those from the United Kingdom. The Government’s National Pupil Database and its student-level School Census provide opportunities for large-scale evaluations of educational interventions, such as curricular reforms or the differential development of types of kids (e.g., the relationship between identification of special educational needs and ethnicity). However, the importance of evaluating both the effectiveness of the program itself and its implementation is becoming increasingly recognized.

Other definitions of Evaluation by other authors;

“The technique of obtaining and assessing information changes in the conduct of all children as they advance through school,” Hanna says.

According to Muffat, “evaluation is a continual process that is concerned with more than the official academic accomplishment of students.” It is viewed in terms of the individual’s growth in terms of desired behavioral change in connection to his feelings, thoughts, and actions.”

Evaluation is a crucial issue in both the first and second years of B.Ed. Every B.Ed. student should comprehend the notion of evaluation and assessment.

Types of Evaluation in Education

• Formative Evaluation
• Summative Evaluation
• Prognostic Evaluation
• Diagnostic Evaluation
• Norm Referenced Evaluation
• Criterion Referenced Evaluation
• Quantitative Evaluation
• Formative evaluation

We would be explaining each of these types of evaluation in education.

1. Formative Evaluation

• This form of evaluation takes place during the instructional process. Its goal is to offer students and teachers with continual feedback.
• This aids in making modifications to the instruction process as needed. It considers smaller and autonomous curricular sections, and pupils are ultimately assessed through assessments.
• It is assessing the kids’ understanding and which part of their work needs more work. A teacher can assess their pupils while educating them on a class or a lesson or after the topic has been completed to see whether or not modifications in teaching approach are required.
• It is really beneficial to make modifications or timely corrections in pupils and teaching style.

2. Summative Evaluation

• Summative evaluation occurs at the end of the school year. It assesses the success of objectives and changes in a student’s general personality at the end of the session.
• Summative evaluations address a wide range of aspects of learning. It considers formative assessment ratings and student tests after course completion to provide final grades and comments to students.
• Summative evaluation is used to grade students.

3. Prognostic Evaluation

• Prognostic evaluations are used to estimate and anticipate a person’s future career.
• A prognostic evaluation adds a new dimension to the discoveries of an assessment with analysis of talents and potentials: the concerned person’s future growth, as well as the necessary circumstances, timeline, and constraints.

4. Diagnostic Evaluation

• As the phrase implies, diagnosis is the process of determining the root cause of a problem. During this examination, a teacher attempts to diagnose each student on many characteristics in order to determine the caliber of pupils.
• A diagnostic assessment is a type of pre-evaluation in which teachers assess students’ strengths, weaknesses, knowledge, and abilities prior to the start of the teaching learning process.
• It necessitates specifically designed diagnostic tests as well as several additional observational procedures.
• It is useful in developing the course and curriculum based on the learner’s ability.

5. Norm Referenced Evaluation

• This type of assessment is centered on evaluating students’ relative performance, either by comparing the outputs of individual learners within the group being evaluated or by juxtaposing their performance to that of others of comparable age, experience, and background.
• It influences the placement of pupils inside the group.

6. Criterion Referenced Evaluation

• Criterion Reference Evaluation explains a person’s performance in relation to a predetermined performance benchmark.
• It describes a student’s performance accuracy, or how well the individual performs in relation to a given standard.
• In other words, it’s like comparing a student’s performance to a predetermined benchmark.

7. Quantitative Evaluation

Quantitative assessments employ scientific instruments and measures. The outcomes can be tallied or measured.

Quantitative Evaluation Techniques or Tools;

• Performance evaluation

8. Formative Evaluation

• Qualitative observations, which are more subjective than qualitative evaluation, are described in science as any observation made utilizing the five senses.
• It entails value assessment.

9. Qualitative Evaluation Techniques or Tools

• Cumulative Records
• The school keeps such statistics to demonstrate pupils’ overall improvement.

10. Anecdotal evidence

These records preserve descriptions of noteworthy events or student efforts.

11. Observation

This is the most popular method of qualitative student assessment. This is the only method for assessing classroom interaction.

12. Checklist

Checklists specify precise criteria and allow instructors and students to collect data and make judgments about what pupils know and can perform in connection to the outcomes. They provide systematic methods for gathering data on certain behaviors, knowledge, and abilities.

Difference Between Evaluation and Assessment

Functions and Importance of Evaluation in Education

The primary goal of the teaching, learning process is to enable the student to obtain the desired learning outcomes. The learning objectives are established during this phase, and then the learning progress is reviewed on a regular basis using tests and other assessment tools.

The evaluation process’s role may be described as follows:

• Evaluation aids in the preparation of instructional objectives: The evaluation results may be used to fix the learning goals expected from the classroom discussion.
• What kind of information and comprehension should the learner gain?
• What skill should they demonstrate?
• What kind of interest and attitude should they cultivate?

Only when we determine the instructional objectives and communicate them clearly in terms of expected learning outcomes will this be achievable. Only a thorough evaluation method allows us to create a set of ideal instructional objectives.

• The evaluation method aids in analyzing the learner’s requirements: It is critical to understand the needs of the learners during the teaching-learning process. The instructor must be aware of the knowledge and abilities that the pupils must learn.

Evaluation aids in delivering feedback to students: An evaluation procedure assists the instructor in determining the students’ learning issues. It contributes to the improvement of many school procedures. It also assures proper follow-up service.

Evaluation aids in the preparation of program materials: A continuous succession of learning sequences is referred to as programmed instruction. First, a limited quantity of teaching content is offered, followed by a test to respond to the instructional material. The following feedback is given based on the accuracy of the response given. Thus, programmed learning is impossible without an adequate evaluation method.

Evaluation aids in curriculum development:

Curriculum creation is an essential component of the educational process. Data from evaluations allow for curriculum creation, determining the efficacy of new methods, and identifying areas that require change. The evaluation also aids in determining the effectiveness of an existing curriculum. Thus, assessment data aids in the development of new curriculum as well as the evaluation of existing curriculum.

• Evaluation aids in communicating the development of students to their parents: A structured evaluation approach gives an objective and complete view of each student’s development. This comprehensive nature of the assessment procedure enables the instructor to report to the parents on the pupil’s overall growth. This sort of objective information about the student serves as the foundation for the most successful collaboration between parents and instructors.

7. Evaluation data are quite valuable in advice and counseling: Educational, vocational, and personal guidance all require evaluation methods. To help students address difficulties in the educational, vocational, and personal domains, the counselor must have an objective understanding of the students’ talents, interests, attitudes, and other personal traits. An successful assessment system aids in the formation of a complete image of the student, which leads to appropriate guiding and counseling.

8 . Evaluation data aids in good school administration: Evaluation data assists administrators in determining the amount to which the school’s objectives are met, determining the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum, and planning special school programs.

• Evaluation data are useful in school research: Research is required to improve the effectiveness of the school program. Data from evaluations aid in research fields such as comparative studies of different curricula, efficacy of different approaches, effectiveness of different organizational designs, and so on.

Principles of Evaluation

The following concepts guide evaluation:

• Continuity principle: Evaluation is a continual process that continues as long as the student is involved in education. Evaluation is an important part of the teaching-learning process. Whatever the student learns should be examined on a daily basis. Only then will the student have a greater mastery of the language.
• The comprehensiveness principle: states that we must evaluate all parts of the learner’s personality. It is concerned with the child’s whole development.
• The principle of Objectives: states that evaluation should always be based on educational objectives. It should aid in determining where there is a need for revamping and stopping the learner’s behavior.
• Child-Centeredness Principle: The child is at the center of the evaluation process. The child’s conduct is the focal point for evaluation. It assists a teacher in determining a child’s grasping ability and the effectiveness of teaching content.
• The principle of broadness: states that evaluation should be wide enough to encompass all areas of life.
• Principle of Application: The child may learn many things during the teaching and learning process. However, they may be ineffective in his daily life. If he can’t utilize it, it’s pointless to look for it. It can be determined by assessment. The evaluation determines if a student is better able to use his knowledge and understanding in various circumstances in order to thrive in life.

8 Evaluation characteristics in education

• Process what is ongoing: Evaluation is a never-ending process. It co-leads with the teaching-learning process.
• Comprehensive: Evaluation is comprehensive because it encompasses everything that can be reviewed.
• Child-Centered: Evaluation is a child-centered technique that emphasizes the learning process rather than the teaching process.
• Remedial: Although evaluation remarks on the outcome, it is not a remedy. The purpose of an evaluation is to correct problems.
• Cooperative Process: Evaluation is a collaborative process that involves students, instructors, parents, and peer groups.
• Teaching Approaches: The effectiveness of various teaching methods is assessed.
• Common Practice: Evaluation is a typical technique for the optimal mental and physical development of the kid.
• Multiple Aspects: It is concerned with pupils’ whole personalities.

In summary, Evidence of efficacy, often from random controlled trials, and the effectiveness of project planning is required for the evaluation of educational programs. Program evaluations must prove that the program can perform under ideal controlled situations and that it will work when carried out on a broad scale in community settings to order to give valuable data to support policy. To address these many dimensions of effectiveness, evaluation benefits from a combined approaches strategic plan.

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My Environmental Education Evaluation Resource Assistant

Evaluation: what is it and why do it.

• Planning and Implementing an EE Evaluation
• Step 1: Before You Get Started
• Step 2: Program Logic
• Step 3: Goals of Evaluation
• Step 4: Evaluation Design
• Step 5: Collecting Data
• Step 6: Analyzing Data
• Step 7: Reporting Results
• Step 8: Improve Program
• Related Topics
• Sample EE Evaluations
• Links & Resources

Evaluation. What associations does this word bring to mind? Do you see evaluation as an invaluable tool to improve your program? Or do you find it intimidating because you don't know much about it? Regardless of your perspective on evaluation, MEERA is here to help! The purpose of this introductory section is to provide you with some useful background information on evaluation.

Table of Contents

What is evaluation?

Should i evaluate my program, what type of evaluation should i conduct and when, what makes a good evaluation, how do i make evaluation an integral part of my program, how can i learn more.

Evaluation is a process that critically examines a program. It involves collecting and analyzing information about a program’s activities, characteristics, and outcomes. Its purpose is to make judgments about a program, to improve its effectiveness, and/or to inform programming decisions (Patton, 1987).

Experts stress that evaluation can:

Improve program design and implementation.

It is important to periodically assess and adapt your activities to ensure they are as effective as they can be. Evaluation can help you identify areas for improvement and ultimately help you realize your goals more efficiently. Additionally, when you share your results about what was more and less effective, you help advance environmental education.

Demonstrate program impact.

Evaluation enables you to demonstrate your program’s success or progress. The information you collect allows you to better communicate your program's impact to others, which is critical for public relations, staff morale, and attracting and retaining support from current and potential funders.

Why conduct evaluations? approx. 2 minutes

Gus Medina, Project Manager, Environmental Education and Training Partnership

There are some situations where evaluation may not be a good idea

Evaluations fall into one of two broad categories: formative and summative. Formative evaluations are conducted during program development and implementation and are useful if you want direction on how to best achieve your goals or improve your program. Summative evaluations should be completed once your programs are well established and will tell you to what extent the program is achieving its goals.

Within the categories of formative and summative, there are different types of evaluation.

Which of these evaluations is most appropriate depends on the stage of your program:

Make evaluation part of your program; don’t tack it on at the end!

Adapted from:

Norland, E. (2004, Sept). From education theory.. to conservation practice Presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Association for Fish & Wildlife Agencies, Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Pancer, s. M., and Westhues, A. (1989) "A developmental stage approach to program planning and evaluation." Evaluation Review (13): 56-77.

Rossi R H., Lipsey, M. W., & Freeman. H. E. (2004). Evaluation: a systematic approach Thousand Oaks. Call.: Sage Publications.

For additional information on the differences between outcomes and impacts, including lists of potential EE outcomes and impacts, see MEERA's Outcomes and Impacts page.

A well-planned and carefully executed evaluation will reap more benefits for all stakeholders than an evaluation that is thrown together hastily and retrospectively. Though you may feel that you lack the time, resources, and expertise to carry out an evaluation, learning about evaluation early-on and planning carefully will help you navigate the process.

MEERA provides suggestions for all phases of an evaluation. But before you start, it will help to review the following characteristics of a good evaluation (list adapted from resource formerly available through the University of Sussex, Teaching and Learning Development Unit Evaluation Guidelines and John W. Evans' Short Course on Evaluation Basics):

Good evaluation is tailored to your program and builds on existing evaluation knowledge and resources.

Your evaluation should be crafted to address the specific goals and objectives of your EE program. However, it is likely that other environmental educators have created and field-tested similar evaluation designs and instruments. Rather than starting from scratch, looking at what others have done can help you conduct a better evaluation. See MEERA’s searchable database of EE evaluations to get started.

Good evaluation is inclusive.

It ensures that diverse viewpoints are taken into account and that results are as complete and unbiased as possible. Input should be sought from all of those involved and affected by the evaluation such as students, parents, teachers, program staff, or community members. One way to ensure your evaluation is inclusive is by following the practice of participatory evaluation.

Good evaluation is honest.

Evaluation results are likely to suggest that your program has strengths as well as limitations. Your evaluation should not be a simple declaration of program success or failure. Evidence that your EE program is not achieving all of its ambitious objectives can be hard to swallow, but it can also help you learn where to best put your limited resources.

Good evaluation is replicable and its methods are as rigorous as circumstances allow.

A good evaluation is one that is likely to be replicable, meaning that someone else should be able to conduct the same evaluation and get the same results. The higher the quality of your evaluation design, its data collection methods and its data analysis, the more accurate its conclusions and the more confident others will be in its findings.

Consider doing a “best practices” review of your program before proceeding with your evaluation.

Making evaluation an integral part of your program means evaluation is a part of everything you do. You design your program with evaluation in mind, collect data on an on-going basis, and use these data to continuously improve your program.

Developing and implementing such an evaluation system has many benefits including helping you to:

• better understand your target audiences' needs and how to meet these needs
• design objectives that are more achievable and measurable
• monitor progress toward objectives more effectively and efficiently
• learn more from evaluation
• increase your program's productivity and effectiveness

To build and support an evaluation system:

Couple evaluation with strategic planning.

As you set goals, objectives, and a desired vision of the future for your program, identify ways to measure these goals and objectives and how you might collect, analyze, and use this information. This process will help ensure that your objectives are measurable and that you are collecting information that you will use. Strategic planning is also a good time to create a list of questions you would like your evaluation to answer.

Revisit and update your evaluation plan and logic model

(See Step 2) to make sure you are on track. Update these documents on a regular basis, adding new strategies, changing unsuccessful strategies, revising relationships in the model, and adding unforeseen impacts of an activity (EMI, 2004).

Build an evaluation culture

by rewarding participation in evaluation, offering evaluation capacity building opportunities, providing funding for evaluation, communicating a convincing and unified purpose for evaluation, and celebrating evaluation successes.

The following resource provides more depth on integrating evaluation into program planning:

Best Practices Guide to Program Evaluation for Aquatic Educators (.pdf) Beginner Intermediate Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation. (2006).

Chapter 2 of this guide, “Create a climate for evaluation,” gives advice on how to fully institutionalize evaluation into your organization. It describes features of an organizational culture, and explains how to build teamwork, administrative support and leadership for evaluation. It discusses the importance of developing organizational capacity for evaluation, linking evaluation to organizational planning and performance reviews, and unexpected benefits of evaluation to organizational culture.

If you want to learn more about how to institutionalize evaluation, check out the following resources on adaptive management. Adaptive management is an approach to conservation management that is based on learning from systematic, on-going monitoring and evaluation, and involves adapting and improving programs based on the findings from monitoring and evaluation.

• Adaptive Management: A Tool for Conservation Practitioners Salafsky, N., R. Margoluis, and K. Redford, (2001) Biodiversity Support Program. Beginner This guide provides an overview of adaptive management, defines the approach, describes the conditions under which adaptive managements makes most sense, and outlines the steps involved.
• Measures of Conservation Success: Designing, Managing, and Monitoring Conservation and Development Projects Margoluis, R., and N. Salafsky. (1998) Island Press. Beginner Intermediate Advanced Available for purchase at Amazon.com. This book provides a detailed guide to project management and evaluation. The chapters and case studies describe the process step-by-step, from project conception to conclusion. The chapters on creating and implementing a monitoring plan, and on using the information obtained to modify the project are particularly useful.
• Does your project make a difference? A guide to evaluating environmental education projects and programs. Sydney: Department of Environment and Conservation, Australia. (2004) Beginner Section 1 provides a useful introduction to evaluation in EE. It defines evaluation, and explains why it is important and challenging, with quotes about the evaluation experiences of several environmental educators.
• Designing Evaluation for Education Projects (.pdf), NOAA Office of Education and Sustainable Development. (2004) Beginner In Section 3, “Why is evaluation important to project design and implementation?” nine benefits of evaluation are listed, including, for example, the value of using evaluation results for public relations and outreach.
• Evaluating EE in Schools: A Practical Guide for Teachers (.pdf) Bennett, D.B. (1984). UNESCO-UNEP Beginner Intermediate The introduction of this guide explains four main benefits of evaluation in EE, including: 1) building greater support for your program, 2) improving your program, 3) advancing student learning, 4) promoting better environmental outcomes.
• Guidelines for Evaluating Non-Profit Communications Efforts (.pdf) Communications Consortium Media Center. (2004) Beginner Intermediate A section titled “Overarching Evaluation Principles” describes twelve principles of evaluation, such as the importance of being realistic about the potential impact of a project, and being aware of how values shape evaluation. Another noteworthy section, “Acknowledging the Challenges of Evaluation,” outlines nine substantial challenges, including the difficulty in assessing complicated changes in multiple levels of society (school, community, state, etc.). This resource focuses on evaluating public communications efforts, though most of the content is relevant to EE.

EMI (Ecosystem Management Initiative). (2004). Measuring Progress: An Evaluation Guide for Ecosystem and Community-Based Projects. School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan. Downloaded September 20, 2006 from: www.snre.umich.edu/ecomgt/evaluation/templates.htm

Patton, M.Q. (1987). Qualitative Research Evaluation Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers.

Thomson, G. & Hoffman, J. (2003). Measuring the success of EE programs. Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

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Educational Evaluation: What Is It & Importance

Educational evaluation is acquiring and analyzing data to determine how each student’s behavior evolves during their academic career.

Evaluation is a continual process more interested in a student’s informal academic growth than their formal academic performance. It is interpreted as an individual’s growth regarding a desired behavioral shift in the relationship between his feelings, thoughts, and deeds. A student interest survey helps customize teaching methods and curriculum to make learning more engaging and relevant to students’ lives.

The classroom response system allowed students to answer multiple-choice questions and engage in real-time discussions instantly.

The practice of determining something’s worth using a particular appraisal is called evaluation. This blog will discuss educational evaluation, its importance, and its principles.

LEARN ABOUT: course evaluation survey examples

What is educational evaluation?

An educational evaluation comprises standardized tests that evaluate a child’s academic aptitude in several topics.

The assessment will show if a kid is falling behind evenly in each subject area or whether specific barriers are preventing that student from performing at grade level in a particular subject.

Educational evaluators generally hold a master’s or doctoral degree in education or psychology, and assessments take three to five hours to complete.

Examining the success of program interventions is part of educational evaluation. When it comes to education, these usually have to do with learning (like reading), behavioral, emotional, and social development (like antibullying programs), or more general issues (like changes to the entire school system, like inclusive education).

Importance of educational evaluation

In the teaching-learning process, educational evaluation is crucial since it serves a common goal.

• Diagnostic: Evaluation is a thorough, ongoing process. It aids a teacher in identifying problems and aids a teacher in solving problems with his students.
• Remedial: By remedial work, we imply the appropriate resolution is found once issues are identified. The development of a student’s personality and the desired change in behavior can be achieved with a teacher’s help.
• To make education goals clear: It’s also crucial to define the goals of schooling. The purpose of education is to alter a student’s behavior. A teacher can demonstrate how a learner’s conduct has changed through evaluation.
• It offers guidance: A teacher can only provide advice if he is adequately informed about his students. And only after a thorough assessment that considers all aspects of aptitude, interest, intelligence, etc., can counsel be provided.
• Classification aid: Evaluation is a way for teachers to classify their pupils and assist them by determining their student’s intelligence, ability, and interest levels.
• Beneficial for Improving the Learning and Teaching Process: A teacher can enhance a student’s personality and learn through evaluation, and he can also know the effectiveness of his instruction. As a result, it aids in enhancing the teaching and learning process.

Principles of educational evaluation

The following principles form the foundation of educational evaluation:

• The principle of continuity: Evaluation is a continuous process as long as the student is in school. Evaluation in education is an integral part of the teaching-learning process.

Whatever the learner does should be evaluated every day. Only then could the learner have a better grasp of the language.

• The principle of comprehensiveness: When we say “comprehensiveness,” we look at all aspects of the learner’s personality. It cared about the child’s development in all areas.
• The principle of Objectives: Evaluation should be based on the goals of education. It should help determine where the learner’s behavior needs to be changed or stopped.
• The principle of Learning Experience: Evaluation is also related to the learner’s experiences.

In this process, we don’t just look at the learner’s schoolwork but his extracurricular activities. Both types of activities can help learners gain more experience.

• The principle of Broadness: Evaluation should be broad enough to embrace all elements of life.
• The principle of child-centeredness is: The child is at the center of the evaluation process. The child’s behavior is the most important thing to look at when judging. 

It helps a teacher know how much a child can understand and how valuable the teaching material is.

• The principle of Application: During the teaching and learning process, a child may learn many things, but they may not be helpful in everyday life. If he can’t use it, then it’s useless to find. It can be seen through evaluation.

Evaluation decides which student is better at using his knowledge and understanding in different situations to help him succeed.

Educational evaluations are meant to present evidence-based arguments regarding whether or not educational results may be improved by implementing intervention measures. The evaluation objectives are broadening along with the parameters of educational assessment.

Understanding the various learning exams and evaluations will help you identify the testing most helpful for your child and the causes of any issues or learning disparities they may be experiencing. 

You might need a professional’s help to decide whether your child needs an evaluation and what kind of assessment they need.

Students have a lot to say. Therefore, it should be significant to let them know their input is needed to change how they are taught. Quick survey creation is possible with programs like QuestionPro and LivePolls, which can help improve academic performance and foster student experience .

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Evaluation: Types & Characteristics of a Good Evaluation Process

Evaluation:.

Evaluation, particularly educational evaluation, is a series of activities designed to measure the effectiveness of the teaching-learning system as a whole. We are already familiar with the fact that the teaching-learning process involves the interaction of three major elements i.e., Objectives, learning experiences and learner appraisal. Evaluation takes care of all the interactive aspects of three major elements i.e…, the whole teaching-learning system.

“Evaluation is the collection, analysis and interpretation of information about any aspect of a program of education, as part of a recognized process of judging its effectiveness, its efficiency and any other outcomes it may have.”  

The above Definition offers the following

Evaluation is not just another word for assessment. The quality of our learner’s learning may well be one of the outcomes we need to evaluate. But many other factors may be equally worth looking at.

Assessment : 

By assessment, we mean the processes and instruments that are designed to measure the learner’s achievement, when learners are engaged in an instructional program of one sort or another. It is concerned with ascertaining the extent to which the objectives of the program have been met. The term assessment/is often used interchangeably with the terms evaluation and measurement. However, assessment has a narrower meaning than evaluation but a broader meaning than measurement. In its derivation, the word assess means “to sit beside” or “to assist the judge”. It, therefore, seems appropriate in evaluation studies to limit the term assessment to the process of gathering the data and fashioning them into an interpretable form; judgment can then be made on the basis of this assessment.

Assessment as we define it precedes the final decision-making stage in evaluation e.g., the decision to continue, modify, or terminate an educational program.

  Measurement:   

It is mainly concerned with the collection or gathering of data e.g., students scores in an examination. It is an act or process of measuring the physical properties of objects such as length and mass. Similarly, behavioral sciences, it is concerned with the measurement of psychological characteristics such as neuroticism, and attitudes towards various phenomena.

Evaluation involves assessment and measurement it is a and more inclusive term than assessment and measurement.

Hence evaluation process is quite comprehensive and it is very much desired for effective teaching and learning.

Types of Evaluation

Formative evaluation.

The goal of formative Evaluation is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative Evaluations:

• help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
• help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

Formative Evaluations are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative Evaluations include asking students to:  draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic

• submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture  turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative Evaluation

The goal of summative evaluation is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Summative Evaluations are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative Evaluations include:

• a midterm exam
• a final project
• a senior recital

Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation  

Continuous and comprehensive evaluation is an education system newly introduced by the Central Board of Secondary Education in India, for students of sixth to tenth grades. The main aim of CCE is to evaluate every aspect of the child during their presence at the school. This is believed to help reduce the pressure on the child during/before examinations as the student will have to sit for multiple tests throughout the year, of which no test or the syllabus covered will be repeated at the end of the year, whatsoever. The CCE method is claimed to bring enormous changes from the traditional chalk-and-talk method of teaching provided it is implemented accurately.

The basic features or characteristics of a good evaluation process are follows 

Validity: A valid evaluation is one that actually tests what is sets out to test i.e., one which actually measures that behavior described by the objective(s), under scrutiny. Obviously, no one would deliberately. Construct an evaluation item to test irrelevant material but very often non-valid test items are in fact used e.g. questions that are intended to test recall of factual material but which actually test the candidate’s powers of reasoning, or questions that assume a level of pre-knowledge that the candidates do not necessarily possess.

Reliability : The reliability is a measure of the consistency with which the question, test, or examination produces the same result under different but comparable conditions. A reliable evaluation item gives reproducible scores with similar populations of students. It is, therefore, independent of the characteristics of individual evaluations. In order to maintain reliability, one evaluative question should test only one thing at a time and give the candidates no other option. The evaluation should also adequately reflect the objectives of the teaching unit.

Practicability : Evaluation procedures should be realistic, practical, and efficient in terms of their cost, time is taken, and the case of application. It may be an ideal procedure of evaluation but may not be put into practice,

Fairness : Evaluation must be fair to all students. This can be possible by accurate reflecting on range on expected behaviors as desired by the course objectives. To keep fairness in evaluation, it is also desired that students should know exactly how they are to be evaluated. This means that students should be provided information about evaluation such as the the nature of the materials on which they are to be examined (i.e., Context and Objectives), the form and structure of the examination, length of the e examination, and the value (in terms of marks) of each component of the course.

  Usefulness : Evaluation should also be useful for students. Feedback from the the evaluation must be made available to the students weaknesses. By knowing their strength and weakness, Students can think of further improvements. Evaluation should suggest all the needful requirements for their improvement.

Interpretation of Results:  Another factor that must be considered in the choice of a test is the ease of interpretation of test results. A test score is not meaningful unless the teacher or counselor is able to decide what significance or importance should be attached to it and to make some judgment concerning its relationship to another kind of information about the student. Nearly all test publishers produce manuals designed to aid the teacher in interpreting test results.

But these manuals vary greatly on quality and in the thoroughness with which they do this important job. From the point of view of the teacher, principal, or counselor, the quality of the test manual should be just as important a factor in the choice of a test as the quality of the test itself

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Principles of Evaluation

The evaluation of teaching and learning reaches far beyond gathering  end-term course feedback  and includes  mid-term feedback  and other methods to assess the quality of an instructor’s teaching, including peer review and the  instructor’s own reflection .

Key principles and practices

• No one method offers a complete view of the quality of an instructor’s teaching. Each source of data provides a partial perspective and has certain limitations.
• The validity of any measure of teaching effectiveness depends on how well it correlates with intended student outcomes.
• The standards to which faculty are held are most fair when transparent.
• Fairness also depends on measurements being applied under equivalent circumstances across courses. Measured values should take into consideration factors over which faculty have little or no control, such as class size; student preparedness; quarter in which a course is offered; and the demographics of the class, including race, gender, sexual orientation, intersectionality, and other dimensions of diversity.
• Faculty can be productively included in developing the criteria and methods for evaluating teaching effectiveness.
• Evaluation can extend beyond classroom performance. The development of new curricula or courses, and the supervision and mentoring of students can all be taken into account. Participation in teaching development institutes, workshops, and consultations might also be considered.
• Practicality requires that evaluations fit the capacity of the department to actually undertake the process.
• Decisions about appointments and promotions should concentrate on the individual and take into account the distinct characteristics of an instructor’s career and teaching context, even though comparative rankings hold great sway in some current evaluation systems.

Key dates for end-term feedback

Check the dates for end-term feedback for the academic year.

Frequently asked questions

Get answers to some common questions.

Key principles of evaluation

Key ideas guiding evaluations and student feedback at Stanford.

the encyclopaedia of pedagogy and informal education

Evaluation for education, learning and change – theory and practice

Evaluation  for education, learning and change – theory and practice. Evaluation is part and parcel of educating – yet it can be experienced as a burden and an unnecessary intrusion. We explore the theory and practice of evaluation and some of the key issues for informal and community educators, social pedagogues youth workers and others. In particular, we examine educators as connoisseurs and critics, and the way in which they can deepen their theory base and become researchers in practice.

Contents : introduction · on evaluation · three key dimensions · thinking about indicators · on being connoisseurs and critics · educators as action researchers · some issues when evaluating informal education · conclusion · further reading and references · acknowledgements · how to cite this article

A lot is written about evaluation in education – a great deal of which is misleading and confused. Many informal educators such as youth workers and social pedagogues are suspicious of evaluation because they see it as something that is imposed from outside. It is a thing that we are asked to do; or that people impose on us. As Gitlin and Smyth (1989) comment, from its Latin origin meaning ‘to strengthen’ or to empower, the term evaluation has taken a numerical turn – it is now largely about the measurement of things – and in the process can easily slip into becoming an end rather than a means. In this discussion of evaluation we will be focusing on how we can bring questions of value (rather than numerical worth) back into the centre of the process. Evaluation is part and parcel of educating.  To be informal educators we are constantly called upon to make judgements, to make theory, and to discern whether what is happening is for the good. We have, in Elliot W. Eisner’s words, to be connoisseurs and critics. In this piece we explore some important dimensions of this process; the theories involved; the significance of viewing ourselves as action researchers; and some issues and possibilities around evaluation in informal and community education, youth work and social pedagogy. However, first we need to spend a little bit of time on the notion of evaluation itself.

On evaluation

Much of the current interest in evaluation theory and practice can be directly linked to the expansion of government programmes (often described as the ‘New Deal’) during the 1930s in the United States and the implementation of various initiatives during the 1960s (such as Kennedy’s ‘War on Poverty’) (see Shadish, Cork and Leviton 1991). From the 1960s-on ‘evaluation’ grew as an activity, a specialist field of employment with its own professional bodies, and as a body of theory. With large sums of state money flowing into new agencies (with projects and programmes often controlled or influenced by people previously excluded from such political power) officials and politicians looked to increased monitoring and review both to curb what they saw as ‘abuses’, and to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their programmes. A less charitable reading would be that they were both increasingly concerned with micro-managing initiatives and in controlling the activities of new agencies and groups. Their efforts were aided in this by developments in social scientific research. Of special note here are the activities of Kurt Lewin and the interest in action research after the Second World War.

As a starter I want to offer an orienting definition:

Evaluation is the systematic exploration and judgement of working processes, experiences and outcomes. It pays special attention to aims, values, perceptions, needs and resources.

There are several things that need to be said about this.

First, evaluation entails gathering, ordering and making judgments about information in a methodical way. It is a research process.

Second, evaluation is something more than monitoring. Monitoring is largely about ‘watching’ or keeping track and may well involve things like performance indicators. Evaluation involves making careful judgements about the worth, significance and meaning of phenomenon.

Third, evaluation is very sophisticated. There is no simple way of making good judgements. It involves, for example, developing criteria or standards that are both meaningful and honour the work and those involved.

Fourth, evaluation operates at a number of levels. It is used to explore and judge practice and programmes and projects (see below).

Last, evaluation if it is to have any meaning must look at the people involved, the processes and any outcomes we can identify. Appreciating and getting of flavour of these involves dialogue. This makes the focus enquiry rather than measurement – although some measurement might be involved (Rowlands 1991). The result has to be an emphasis upon negotiation and consensus concerning the process of evaluation, and the conclusions reached.

Three key dimensions

Basically, evaluation is either about proving something is working or needed, or improving practice or a project (Rogers and Smith 2006). The first often arises out of our accountability to funders, managers and, crucially, the people are working with. The second is born of a wish to do what we do better. We look to evaluation as an aid to strengthen our practice, organization and programmes (Chelimsky 1997: 97-188).

To help make sense of the development of evaluation I want to explore three key dimensions or distinctions and some of the theory associated.

Programme or practice evaluation? First, it is helpful to make a distinction between programme and project evaluation, and practice evaluation. Much of the growth in evaluation has been driven by the former.

Programme and project evaluation. This form of evaluation is typically concerned with making judgements about the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of pieces of work. Here evaluation is essentially a management tool. Judgements are made in order to reward the agency or the workers, and/or to provide feedback so that future work can be improved or altered. The former may well be related to some form of payment by results such as the giving of bonuses for ‘successful’ activities, the invoking of penalty clauses for those deemed not to have met the objectives set for it and to decisions about giving further funding. The latter is important and necessary for the development of work.

Practice evaluation . This form of evaluation is directed at the enhancement of work undertaken with particular individuals and groups, and to the development of participants (including the informal educator). It tends to be an integral part of the working process. In order to respond to a situation workers have to make sense of what is going on, and how they can best intervene (or not intervene). Similarly, other participants may also be encouraged or take it upon themselves to make judgements about the situation. In other words, they evaluate the situation and their part in it. Such evaluation is sometimes described as educative or pedagogical as it seeks to foster learning. But this is only part of the process. The learning involved is oriented to future or further action. It is also informed by certain values and commitments (informal educators need to have an appreciation of what might make for human flourishing and what is ‘good’). For this reason we can say the approach is concerned with praxis – action that is informed and committed

These two forms of evaluation will tend to pull in different directions. Both are necessary – but just how they are experienced will depend on the next two dimensions.

Summative or formative evaluation? Evaluations can be summative or formative. Evaluation can be primarily directed at one of two ends:

• To enable people and agencies make judgements about the work undertaken; to identify their knowledge, attitudes and skills, and to understand the changes that have occurred in these; and to increase their ability to assess their learning and performance ( formative evaluation ).
• To enable people and agencies to demonstrate that they have fulfilled the objectives of the programme or project, or to demonstrate they have achieved the standard required ( summative evaluation ).

Either can be applied to a programme or to the work of an individual. Our experience of evaluation is likely to be different according to the underlying purpose. If it is to provide feedback so that programmes or practice can be developed we are less likely, for example, to be defensive about our activities. Such evaluation isn’t necessarily a comfortable exercise, and we may well experience it as punishing – especially if it is imposed on us (see below). Often a lot more is riding on a summative evaluation. It can mean the difference between having work and being unemployed!

Banking or dialogical evaluation? Last, it is necessary to explore the extent to which evaluation is dialogical. As we have already seen much evaluation is imposed or required by people external to the situation. The nature of the relationship between those requiring evaluation and those being evaluated is, thus of fundamental importance. Here we might useful employ two contrasting models. We can usefully contrast the dominant or traditional model that tend to see the people involved in a project as objects, with an alternative, dialogical approach that views all those involved as subjects. This division has many affinities to Freire’s (1972) split between banking and dialogical models of education.

Exhibit 1: Rowlands on traditional (banking) and alternative (dialogical) evaluation

Joanna Rowlands has provided us with a useful summary of these approaches to evaluation. She was particularly concerned with the evaluation of social development projects.

The characteristics of the traditional (banking) approach to evaluation:

1.     A search for objectivity and a ‘scientific approach’, through standardized procedures. The values used in this approach… often reflect the priorities of the evaluator.

2.     An over-reliance on quantitative measures. Qualitative aspects…, being difficult to measure, tend to be ignored.

3.     A high degree of managerial control, whereby managers can influence the questions being asked Other people, who may be affected by the findings of an evaluation, may have little input, either in shaping the questions to be asked or reflecting on the findings.

4.     Outsiders are usually contracted to be evaluator in the belief that his will increase objectivity, and there may be a negative perception of them by those being evaluated’.

The characteristics of the alternative (dialogical) approach to evaluation

1.     Evaluation is viewed as an integral part of the development or change process and involves ‘reflection-action’. Subjectivity is recognized and appreciated.

2.     There is a focus on dialogue, enquiry rather than measurement, and a tendency to use less formal methods like unstructured interviews and participant observation.

3.     It is approached as an ‘empowering process’ rather than control by an external body. There is a recognition that different individuals and groups will have different perceptions. Negotiation and consensus is valued concerning the process of evaluation, and the conclusions reached, and recommendations made

4.     The evaluator takes on the role of facilitator, rather than being an objective and neutral outsider. Such evaluation may well be undertaken by ‘insiders’ – people directly involved in the project or programme.

Adapted from Joanna Rowlands (1991) How do we know it is working? The evaluation of social development projects , and discussed in Rubin (1995: 17-23)

We can see in these contrasting models important questions about power and control, the way in which those directly involved in programmes and projects are viewed. Dialogical evaluation places the responsibility for evaluation squarely on the educators and the other participants in the setting (Jeffs and Smith 2005: 85-92).

Thinking about indicators

The key part of evaluation, some may argue, is framing the questions we want to ask, and the information we want to collect such that the answers provide us with the indicators of change.  Unfortunately, as we have seen, much of the talk and practice around indicators in evaluation has been linked to rather crude measures of performance and the need to justify funding (Rogers and Smith 2006). We want to explore the sort of indicators that might be more fitting to the work we do.

In common usage an indicator points to something, it is a sign or symptom. The difficulty facing us is working out just what we are seeing might be a sign of. In informal education – and any authentic education – the results of our labours may only become apparent some time later in the way that people live their lives. In addition, any changes in behaviour we see may be specific to the situation or relationship (see below). Further, it is often difficult to identify who or what was significant in bringing about change. Last, when we look at, or evaluate, the work, as E Lesley Sewell (1966) put it, we tend to see what we are looking for. For these reasons a lot of the outcomes that are claimed in evaluations and reports about work with particular groups or individuals have to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Luckily, in trying to make sense of our work and the sorts of indicators that might be useful in evaluation, we can draw upon wisdom about practice, broader research findings, and our values.

Exhibit 2: Evaluation – what might we need indicators for?

We want to suggest four possible areas that we might want indicators for:

The number of  people we are in contact with and working with . In general, as informal educators we should expect to make and maintain a lot of contacts . This is so people know about us, and the opportunities and support we can offer. We can also expect to involve smaller numbers of participants in groups and projects, and an even smaller number as ‘clients’ in intensive work. The numbers we might expect – and the balance between them – will differ from project to project (Jeffs and Smith 2005: 116-121). However, through dialogue it does seem possible to come some agreement about these – and in the process we gain a useful tool for evaluation.

The nature of the opportunities we offer . We should expect to be asked questions about the nature and range of opportunities we offer. For example, do young people have a chance to talk freely and have fun; expand and enlarge their experience, and learn? As informal educators we should also expect to work with people to build varied programmes and groups and activities with different foci.

The quality of relationships available . Many of us talk about our work in terms of ‘building relationships’. By this we often mean that we work both through relationship, and for relationship (see Smith and Smith forthcoming). This has come under attack from those advocating targeted and more outcome-oriented work. However, the little sustained research that has been done confirms that it is the relationships that informal educators and social pedagogues form with people, and encourage them to develop with others, that really matters (see Hirsch 2005). Unfortunately identifying sensible indicators of progress is not easy – and the job of evaluation becomes difficult as a result.

How well people work together and for others . Within many of the arenas where informal education flourishes there is a valuing of working so that people may organize things for themselves, and be of service to others. The respect in which this held is also backed up by research. We know, for example, that people involved in running groups generally grow in self-confidence and develop a range of skills (Elsdon 1995). We also know that those communities where a significant number of people are involved in organizing groups and activities are healthier, have more positive experiences of education, are more active economically, and have less crime (Putnam 1999). (Taken from Rogers and Smith 2006)

For some of these areas it is fairly easy to work out indicators. However, when it comes to things like relationships, as Lesley Sewell noted many years ago, ‘Much of it is intangible and can be felt in atmosphere and spirit. Appraisal of this inevitably depends to some extent on the beholders themselves’ (1966: 6). There are some outward signs – like the way people talk to each other. In the end though, informal education is fundamentally an act of faith. However, our faith can be sustained and strengthened by reflection and exploration.

On being connoisseurs and critics

Informal education involves more than gaining and exercising technical knowledge and skills. It depends on us also cultivating a kind of artistry. In this sense, educators are not engineers applying their skills to carry out a plan or drawing, they are artists who are able to improvise and devise new ways of looking at things. We have to work within a personal but shared idea of the ‘good’ – an appreciation of what might make for human flourishing and well-being (see Jeffs and Smith 1990). What is more, there is little that is routine or predictable in our work. As a result, central to what we do as educators is the ability to ‘think on our feet’. Informal education is driven by conversation and by certain values and commitments (Jeffs and Smith 2005).

Describing informal education as an art does sound a bit pretentious. It may also appear twee. But there is a serious point here. When we listen to other educators, for example in team meetings, or have the chance to observe them in action, we inevitably form judgments about their ability. At one level, for example, we might be impressed by someone’s knowledge of the income support system or of the effects of different drugs. However, such knowledge is useless if it cannot be used in the best way. We may be informed and be able to draw on a range of techniques, yet the thing that makes us special is the way in which we are able to combine these and improvise regarding the particular situation. It is this quality that we are describing as artistry.

For Donald Schön (1987: 13) artistry is an exercise of intelligence, a kind of knowing. Through engaging with our experiences we are able to develop maxims about, for example, group work or working with an individual. In other words, we learn to appreciate – to be aware and to understand – what we have experienced. We become what Eisner (1985; 1998) describes as ‘ connoisseurs ‘. This involves very different qualities to those required by dominant models of evaluation.

Connoisseurship is the art of appreciation. It can be displayed in any realm in which the character, import, or value of objects, situations, and performances is distributed and variable, including educational practice. (Eisner 1998: 63)

The word connoisseurship comes from the Latin cognoscere , to know (Eisner 1998: 6). It involves the ability to see, not merely to look. To do this we have to develop the ability to name and appreciate the different dimensions of situations and experiences, and the way they relate one to another. We have to be able to draw upon, and make use of, a wide array of information. We also have to be able to place our experiences and understandings in a wider context, and connect them with our values and commitments. Connoisseurship is something that needs to be worked at – but it is not a technical exercise. The bringing together of the different elements into a whole involves artistry.

However, educators need to become something more than connoisseurs. We need to become critics .

If connoisseurship is the art of appreciation, criticism is the art of disclosure. Criticism, as Dewey pointed out in Art as Experience , has at is end the re-education of perception… The task of the critic is to help us to see.

Thus…  connoisseurship provides criticism with its subject matter. Connoisseurship is private, but criticism is public. Connoisseurs simply need to appreciate what they encounter. Critics, however, must render these qualities vivid by the artful use of critical disclosure. (Eisner 1985: 92-93)

Criticism can be approached as the process of enabling others to see the qualities of something. As Eisner (1998: 6) puts it, ‘effective criticism functions as the midwife to perception. It helps it come into being, then later refines it and helps it to become more acute’. The significance of this for those who want to be educators is, thus, clear. Educators also need to develop the ability to work with others so that they may discover the truth in situations, experiences and phenomenon.

Educators as action researchers

Schön (1987) talks about professionals being ‘researchers in the practice context’. As Bogdan and Biklen (1992: 223) put it, ‘research is a frame of mind – a perspective people take towards objects and activities’. For them, and for us here, it is something that we can all undertake. It isn’t confined to people with long and specialist training. It involves (Stringer 1999: 5):

• A problem to be investigated.

• A process of enquiry

• Explanations that enable people to understand the nature of the problem

Within the action research tradition there have been two basic orientations. The British tradition – especially that linked to education – tends to view action research as research oriented toward the enhancement of direct practice. For example, Carr and Kemmis provide a classic definition:

Action research is simply a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the practices are carried out (Carr and Kemmis 1986: 162).

The second tradition, perhaps more widely approached within the social welfare field – and most certainly the broader understanding in the USA – is of action research as ‘the systematic collection of information that is designed to bring about social change’ (Bogdan and Biklen 1992: 223). Bogdan and Biklen continue by saying that its practitioners marshal evidence or data to expose unjust practices or environmental dangers and recommend actions for change. It has been linked into traditions of citizen’s action and community organizing, but in more recent years has been adopted by workers in very different fields.

In many respects, this distinction mirrors one we have already been using – between programme evaluation and practice evaluation. In the latter, we may well set out to explore a particular piece of work. We may think of it as a case study – a detailed examination of one setting, or a single subject, a single depository of documents, or one particular event (Merriam 1988). We can explore what we did as educators: what were our aims and concerns; how did we act; what were we thinking and feeling and so on? We can look at what may have been going on for other participants; the conversations and interactions that took place; and what people may have learnt and how this may have affected their behaviour. Through doing this we can develop our abilities as connoisseurs and critics. We can enhance what we are able to take into future encounters.

When evaluating a programme or project we may ask other participants to join with us to explore and judge the processes they have been involved in (especially if we are concerned with a more dialogical approach to evaluation). Our concern is to collect information, to reflect upon it, and to make some judgements as to the worth of the project or programme, and how it may be improved. This takes us into the realm of what a number of writers have called community-based action research. We have set out one example of this below.

Exhibit 3: Stringer on community-based action research

A fundamental premise of community-based action research is that it commences with an interest in the problems of a group, a community, or an organization. Its purpose is to assist people in extending their understanding of their situation and thus resolving problems that confront them….

Community-based action research is always enacted through an explicit set of social values. In modern, democratic social contexts, it is seen as a process of inquiry that has the following characteristics:

• It is democratic , enabling the participation of all people.
• It is equitable , acknowledging people’s equality of worth.
• It is liberating , providing freedom from oppressive, debilitating conditions.
• It is life enhancing , enabling the expression of people’s full human potential. (Stringer 1999: 9-10)

The action research process

Action research works through three basic phases:

Look – building a picture and gathering information. When evaluating we define and describe the problem to be investigated and the context in which it is set. We also describe what all the participants (educators, group members, managers etc.) have been doing.

Think – interpreting and explaining. When evaluating we analyse and interpret the situation. We reflect on what participants have been doing. We look at areas of success and any deficiencies, issues or problems.

Act – resolving issues and problems. In evaluation we judge the worth, effectiveness, appropriateness, and outcomes of those activities. We act to formulate solutions to any problems.

(Stringer 1999: 18; 43-44;160)

 We could contrast with a more traditional, banking, style of research in which an outsider (or just the educators working on their own) collect information, organize it, and come to some conclusions as to the success or otherwise of the work.

Some issues when evaluating informal education

In recent years informal educators have been put under great pressure to provide ‘output indicators’, ‘qualitative criteria’, ‘objective success measures’ and ‘adequate assessment criteria’. Those working with young people have been encouraged to show how young people have developed ‘personally and socially through participation’. We face a number of problems when asked to approach our work in such ways. As we have already seen, our way of working as informal educators places us within a more dialogical framework. Evaluating our work in a more bureaucratic and less inclusive fashion may well compromise or cut across our work.

There are also some basic practical problems. Here we explore four particular issues identified by Jeffs and Smith (2005) with respect to programme or project evaluations.

The problem of multiple influences. The different things that influence the way people behave can’t be easily broken down. For example, an informal educator working with a project to reduce teen crime on two estates might notice that the one with a youth club open every weekday evening has less crime than the estate without such provision. But what will this variation, if it even exists, prove? It could be explained, as research has shown, by differences in the ethos of local schools, policing practices, housing, unemployment rates, and the willingness of people to report offences.

The problem of indirect impact.  Those who may have been affected by the work of informal educators are often not easily identified. It may be possible to list those who have been worked with directly over a period of time. However, much contact is sporadic and may even take the form of a single encounter. The indirect impact is just about impossible to quantify. Our efforts may result in significant changes in the lives of people we do not work with. This can happen as those we work with directly develop. Consider, for example, how we reflect on conversations that others recount to us, or ideas that we acquire second- or third-hand. Good informal education aims to achieve a ripple effect. We hope to encourage learning through conversation and example and can only have a limited idea of what the true impact might be.

The problem of evidence. Change can rarely be monitored even on an individual basis. For example, informal educators who focus on alcohol abuse within a particular group can face an insurmountable problem if challenged to provide evidence of success. They will not be able to measure use levels prior to intervention, during contact or subsequent to the completion of their work. In the end all the educator will be able to offer, at best, is vague evidence relating to contact or anecdotal material.

The problem of timescale . Change of the sort with which informal educators are concerned does not happen overnight. Changes in values, and the ways that people come to appreciate themselves and others, are notoriously hard to identify – especially as they are happening. What may seem ordinary at the time can, with hindsight, be recognized as special.

Workarounds

There are two classic routes around such practical problems. We can use both as informal educators.

The first is to undertake the sort of participatory action research we have been discussing here. When setting up and running programmes and projects we can build in participatory research and evaluation from the start. We make it part of our way of working. Participants are routinely invited and involved in evaluation. We encourage them to think about the processes they have been participating in, the way in which they have changed and so on. This can be done in ways that fit in with the general run of things that we do as informal educators.

The second route is to make linkages between our own activities as informal educators and the general research literature. An example here is group or club membership. We may find it very hard to identify the concrete benefits for individuals from being member of a particular group such as a football team or social club. What we can do, however, is to look to the general research on such matters. We know, for example, that involvement in such groups builds social capital . We have evidence that:

In those countries where the state invested most in cultural and sporting facilities young people responded by investing more of their own time in such activities (Gauthier and Furstenberg 2001). The more involved people are in structured leisure activities, good social contacts with friends, and participation in the arts, cultural activities and sport, the more likely they are to do well educationally, and the less likely they are to be involved even in low-level delinquency (Larson and Verma 1999). There appears to be a strong relationship between the possession of social capital and better health. ‘As a rough rule of thumb, if you belong to no groups but decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half . If you smoke and belong to no groups, it’s a toss-up statistically whether you should stop smoking or start joining’ (ibid.: 331). Regular club attendance, volunteering, entertaining, or church attendance is the happiness equivalent of getting a college degree or more than doubling your income. Civic connections rival marriage and affluence as predictors of life happiness (Putnam 2000: 333).

This approach can work where there is some freedom in the way that you can respond to funders and others with regard to evaluation. Where you are forced to fill in forms that require the answers to certain set questions we can still use the evaluations that we have undertaken in a participatory manner – and there may even be room to bring in some references to the broader literature. The key here is to remember that we are educators – and that we have a responsibility foster learning, not only among those we work with in a project or programme, but also among funders, managers and policymakers. We need to view their requests for information as opportunities to work at deepening their appreciation and understanding of informal education and the issues and questions with which we work.

The purpose of evaluation, as Everitt et al (1992: 129) is to reflect critically on the effectiveness of personal and professional practice. It is to contribute to the development of ‘good’ rather than ‘correct’ practice.

Missing from the instrumental and technicist ways of evaluating teaching are the kinds of educative relationships that permit the asking of moral, ethical and political questions about the ‘rightness’ of actions. When based upon educative (as distinct from managerial) relations, evaluative practices become concerned with breaking down structured silences and narrow prejudices. (Gitlin and Smyth 1989: 161)

Evaluation is not primarily about the counting and measuring of things. It entails valuing – and to do this we have to develop as connoisseurs and critics. We have also to ensure that this process of ‘looking, thinking and acting’ is participative.

Further reading and references

For the moment I have listed some guides to evaluation. At a later date I will be adding in some more contextual material concerning evaluation in informal education.

Berk, R. A. and Rossi, P. H. (1990) Thinking About Program Evaluation , Newbury Park: Sage. 128 pages. Clear introduction with chapters on key concepts in evaluation research; designing programmes; examining programmes (using a chronological perspective). Useful US annotated bibliography.

Eisner, E. W. (1985) The Art of Educational Evaluation. A personal view , Barcombe: Falmer. 272 + viii pages. Wonderful collection of material around scientific curriculum making and its alternatives. Good chapters on Eisner’s championship of educational connoisseurship and criticism. Not a cookbook, rather a way of orienting oneself.

Eisner, E. W. (1998) The Enlightened Eye. Qualitative inquiry and the enhancement of educational practice , Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 264 + viii pages. Re-issue of a 1990 classic in which Eisner plays with the ideas of educational connoisseurship and educational criticism. Chapters explore these ideas, questions of validity, method and evaluation. An introductory chapter explores qualitative thought and human understanding and final chapters turn to ethical tensions, controversies and dilemmas; and the preparation of qualitative researchers.

Everitt, A. and Hardiker, P. (1996) Evaluating for Good Practice , London: Macmillan. 223 + x pages. Excellent introduction that takes care to avoid technicist solutions and approaches. Chapters examine purposes; facts, truth and values; measuring performance; a critical approach to evaluation; designing critical evaluation; generating evidence; and making judgements and effecting change.

Hirsch, B. J. (2005) A Place to Call Home. After-school programs for urban youth , New York: Teachers College Press. A rigorous and insightful evaluation of the work of six inner city boys and girls clubs that concludes that the most important thing they can and do offer is relationships (both with peers and with the workers) and a ‘second home’.

Patton, M. Q. (1997) Utilization-Focused Evaluation. The new century text 3e, Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage. 452 pages. Claimed to be the most comprehensive review and integration of the literature on evaluation. Sections focus on evaluation use; focusing evaluations; appropriate methods; and the realities and practicalities of utilization-focused evaluation.

Rossi, P. H., Freeman, H. and Lipsey, M. W. (2004) Evaluation. A systematic approach 7e, Newbury Park, Ca.: Sage. 488 pages. Practical guidance from diagnosing problems through to measuring and analysing programmes. Includes material on formative evaluation procedures, practical ethics, and cost-benefits.

Stringer, E. T. (1999) Action Research 2e, Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage. 229 + xxv pages. Useful discussion of community-based action research directed at practitioners.

Bogden, R. and Biklen, S. K. (1992) Qualitative Research For Education , Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming Critical. Education, knowledge and action research , Lewes: Falmer.

Chelimsky E. (1997) Thoughts for a new evaluation society. Evaluation 3(1): 97-118.

Elsdon, K. T. with Reynolds, J. and Stewart, S. (1995) Voluntary Organizations. Citizenship, learning and change , Leicester: NIACE.

Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed , London: Penguin.

Gauthier, A. H. and Furstenberg, F. F. (2001) ‘Inequalities in the use of time by teenagers and young adults’ in K. Vleminckx and T. M. Smeeding (eds.) Child Well-being, Child Poverty and Child Policy in Modern Nations Bristol: Policy Press.

Gitlin, A. and Smyth, J. (1989) Teacher Evaluation. Critical education and transformative alternatives , Lewes: Falmer Press.

Jeffs, T. and Smith, M. (eds.) (1990) Using Informal Education , Buckingham: Open University Press.

Jeffs and Smith, M. K. (2005) Informal Education. Conversation, democracy and learning 3e, Nottingham: Educational Heretics Press.

Larson, R. W. and Vera, A. (1999) ‘How children and adolescents spend time across the world: work, play and developmental opportunities’ Psychological Bulletin 125(6).

Merriam, S. B. (1988) Case Study Research in Education , San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Putman, R. D. (2000) Bowling Alone: The collapse and revival of American community , New York: Simon and Schuster.

Rogers, A. and Smith, M. K. (2006) Evaluation: Learning what matters , London: Rank Foundation/YMCA George Williams College. Available as a pdf: www.ymca.org.uk/rank/conference/evaluation_learning_what_matters.pdf .

Rubin, F. (1995) A Basic Guide to Evaluation for Development Workers , Oxford: Oxfam.

Schön, D. A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. How professionals think in action , London: Temple Smith.

Sewell, L. (1966) Looking at Youth Clubs , London: National Association of Youth Clubs. Available in the informal education archives : http://www.infed.org/archives/nayc/sewell_looking.htm .

Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D. and Leviton, L. C. (1991) Foundations of Program Evaluation , Newbury Park C.A.: Sage.

Smith, H. and Smith, M. K. (forthcoming) The Art of Helping Others . Being around, being there, being wise . See www.infed.org/helping .

Acknowledgements and credits : Alan Rogers and Sarah Lloyd-Jones were a great help when updating this article – and some of the material in this piece first appeared in Rogers and Smith 2006.

The picture – Office of Mayhem Evaluation – is by xiaming and is reproduced here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence. Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xiaming/78385893/

How to cite this article : Smith, M. K. (2001, 2006). Evaluation for education, learning and change – theory and practice, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education. [ https://infed.org/mobi/evaluation-theory-and-practice/ . Retrieved: insert date]

© Mark K. Smith 2001, 2006

Assessment and Evaluation

What is it .

" Assessment  is an ongoing process aimed at understanding and improving student learning. It involves making our expectations explicit and public; setting appropriate criteria and high standards for learning quality; systematically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting evidence to determine how well performance matches those expectations and standards; and using the resulting information to document, explain, and improve performance. When it is embedded effectively within larger institutional systems, assessment can help us focus our collective attention, examine our assumptions, and create a shared academic culture dedicated to assuring and improving the quality of higher education." (Thomas Angelo, AAHE Bulletin, November 1995, p. 7)

Program-level assessment is NOT about evaluating individual students or faculty teaching effectiveness. Rather, it is about examining student performance and experience across a cohort of students and using the information to continuously improve curriculum effectiveness.

Why Engage?

Program-level assessment  is an opportunity...

• to discover whether students are learning in the ways we hope and expect; to understand, verify, or strengthen student learning and experience in the program;
• to identify curricular and pedagogical features and areas  that are working well and are in need of improvements;
• for creating rich conversations around student learning, pedagogy, and curriculum.
• to inform how resources should be allocated (for improvement, for continuity, for strengthening, etc.) and to plan for the future . 

Our distinguished commitment to teaching excellence, student learning, and continuous improvement drive the assessment process. 

Berkeley Assessment Stories

In a recent published book chapter (Envisioning Scholar-Practitioner Collaborations: Communities of Practice in Education and Sport, 2018), Tony Mirabelli (Assistant Director, Athletic Study Center)  and Kirsten Hextrum described the Athletic Study Center's iterative evolution of their program evaluation and improvement efforts. We interviewed Tony about the book chapter and what motivated him to initiate and integrate program evaluation in ASC.  [ Read more ] 

Evaluation in Education

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• David Nevo 6  

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In this chapter we attempt to clarify the meaning of evaluation as it has been conceptualized and practiced in recent years in the field of education.

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Glasman, N.S., Nevo, D. (1988). Evaluation in Education. In: Evaluation in Decision Making. Evaluation in Education and Human Services Series, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2669-1_3

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What is an evaluation for special education?

By The Understood Team

Expert reviewed by Ellen Braaten, PhD

At a glance

A special education evaluation will show if a child has a disability and needs specialized instruction and support. 

These evaluations go by many names, including special education assessment, school evaluation, and IEP evaluation.

An evaluation for special education will show a child’s strengths and challenges.

When kids are having trouble with academics or behavior, there’s a process that schools can use to find out what’s causing these struggles. This process is called an “evaluation for special education.” The goal is to see if a child has a disability and needs specialized instruction and support. 

A special education evaluation involves a series of steps:

Having the school and family agree that a child needs an evaluation

Gathering school data, like test scores and discipline records

Giving questionnaires to teachers and parents or caregivers (and sometimes to the child) to get a full picture of how the child is doing at school and at home

Having the child tested by a psychologist to see how the child thinks and solves problems

Having the child tested by at least one other professional, like a speech therapist for children who have trouble expressing themselves

Observing the child in a classroom or other school setting

Meeting to discuss the evaluation’s findings and decide if the child qualifies for special education

Federal law says schools need to complete the evaluation process within 60 days. But some states have shorter timelines. 

The evaluation process can create lots of different emotions for families. But after the evaluation, they should have a clear picture of their child’s strengths and challenges and an understanding of how to help their child thrive. 

Learn more about the benefits of getting an evaluation .

Dive deeper

Different terms for evaluations.

One thing that’s confusing about evaluations is that there are so many different terms for them:

Special education assessment

School evaluation

IEP evaluation

Comprehensive or multidisciplinary evaluation

There are also different terms for tests that may be part of the evaluation:

Psychoeducational evaluation or cognitive testing, which looks at how a child thinks

Educational evaluation, which looks at a child’s academic skills

Functional assessment, which looks at how a child behaves 

Learn more about different terms for evaluations .

Free school evaluations vs. private evaluations

School districts are required to evaluate any child who may need special education services. This includes kids who are homeschooled or go to private school. 

A federal law called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) says these evaluations must be free to families. The part of the law that covers evaluations is called Child Find. 

Some families may prefer to get a private evaluation, which can cost thousands of dollars.  

Learn more about Child Find and the pros and cons of school vs. private evaluations .

Evaluations for ADHD

A school evaluation can look at behavior challenges like trouble paying attention. And kids can qualify for school supports for these kinds of behavioral challenges. 

But a school can’t diagnose a child with ADHD or any other health condition. If families want a medical diagnosis, they need to go to a health care provider. 

Learn more about how health care providers evaluate kids for ADHD .

Evaluations for very young kids

Families don’t need to wait until their kids are old enough to go to school to start getting support for a disability. Kids from birth through age 3 can be evaluated for free to find out if they qualify for early intervention services.

Learn more about early intervention .

Evaluations for teens and adults

It’s never too late to seek an evaluation. There are benefits to having an IEP or 504 plan during high school.

Students who receive IEP or 504 services in school may be eligible for accommodations on college entrance exams like the SAT or ACT. Having an IEP or 504 plan in high school can also help your child get accommodations in future studies.

College students can’t get free evaluations through their local school district. But they may be able to get free or low-cost evaluations elsewhere. The same is true for adults. 

Learn more about:

How to get accommodations on college admissions testing  

Who can evaluate adults for learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia

Where to get free or low-cost private evaluations

The more families learn about evaluations, the more confident they’ll feel about advocating for their child. Learn more about key steps in the evaluation process:

Deciding if a child needs an evaluation

Requesting a special education evaluation

Getting ready for the evaluation

Understanding the evaluation results

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{{item.title}}, my essentials, ask for help, contact edconnect, directory a to z, how to guides, evaluation resource hub, process evaluation.

Process evaluation is concerned with evidence of activity, and the quality of implementation. The questions in a process evaluation focus on how, and how well programs are implemented.

Typical process questions include:

• Are activities being implemented as intended? If not, what has been changed and for what reasons?
• What characteristics of the project or its implementation have enabled or hindered project goals?
• How suitable are materials or activities for the intended participants?
• How efficiently are resources being used? Is there any wastage?
• What can be learnt about how to implement a program like this smoothly in similar schools?

Process evaluation is useful in the early stages of implementation, as well as periodically throughout the life of a program or project.

Process evaluation early in a program can assess initial functions and their appropriateness, investigate how well the program plans and activities are working, and provide early warning for any problems that may occur.

For existing or long-running programs, periodic process evaluation promotes ongoing efficiency and quality improvement.

Process evaluation helps to build an understanding of the mechanisms at play in successful programs so that they can be reused and developed for other contexts.

Process evaluation is also helpful when a program fails to achieve its goals for some or all of the target population. Process evaluation helps reveal whether this was because of a failure of implementation, a design flaw in the program, or because of some external barrier in the operating environment or a combination of these and other factors.

Multiple sources

Process evaluation draws on multiple sources of evidence. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are useful in process evaluation.

• Evidence of activity shows what has taken place. This often comes from administrative records, teaching and learning programs, correspondence and student work.
• Evidence of process quality not only tells us what has taken place but how well it was executed.  Evidence of process quality can come from a number of sources, including participant feedback about their experiences, comparison of observed practice with recommended practice, or something not going as planned.

Follow the link below to read more about the strengths and limitations of different data types.

Keep reading

• Data types - strengths and limitations

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What is evaluation?

There are many different ways that people use the term 'evaluation'. 

At BetterEvaluation, when we talk about evaluation, we mean:

any systematic process to judge merit, worth or significance by combining evidence and values

That means we consider a broad range of activities to be evaluations, including some you might not have thought of as 'evaluations' before. We might even consider you to be an evaluator, even if you have never thought of yourself as an evaluator before!

Different labels for evaluation

When we talk about evaluation, we also include evaluation known by different labels:

• Impact analysis
• Social impact analysis
• Appreciative inquiry
• Cost-benefit assessment

Different types of evaluation

When we talk about evaluation we include many different types of evaluation - before, during and after implementation, such as:

• Needs analysis —​ ​which analyses and prioritises needs to inform planning for an intervention​
• Ex-ante impact evaluation — which predicts the likely impacts of an intervention to inform resource allocation
• Process evaluation —​ which examines the nature and quality of implementation of an intervention​
• Outcome and impact evaluation —​ which examines the results of an intervention​
• Sustained and emerging impacts evaluations —​ which examine the enduring impacts of an intervention sometime after it has ended​
• Value-for-money evaluations —​ which examine the relationship between the cost of an intervention and the value of its positive and negative impacts​
• Syntheses of multiple evaluations —​ which combine evidence from multiple evaluations​

Monitoring and evaluation

When we talk about evaluation we include discrete evaluations and ongoing monitoring, including:

• Performance indicators and metrics
• Integrated monitoring and evaluation systems

Evaluations by different groups

When we talk about evaluation we include evaluations done by different groups, such as:

• External evaluators
• Internal staff
• Communities
• A hybrid team

Evaluation for different purposes

When we talk about evaluation we include evaluations that are intended to be used for different purposes:

• Formatively, to make improvements
• Summatively, to inform decisions about whether to start, continue, expand or stop an intervention.

Formative evaluation is not the same as process evaluation. Formative evaluation refers to the intended use of an evaluation (to make improvements); process evaluation refers to the focus of an evaluation (how it is being implemented).

As you can see, our definition of evaluation is broad. The resources on BetterEvaluation are designed with this in mind, and we hope they will help you in a range of evaluative activities.

How is this different to what other people mean by 'evaluation'?

Not everyone defines evaluation in this way because of their diverse professional and educational backgrounds and training and organisational context. Be aware that people might define evaluation differently, and consider the implications of the labels and definitions that are used.

For example, some organisations use a definition of evaluation that focuses only on understanding whether or not an intervention has met its goals. However, this definition would not include a process evaluation, which might be used to check the quality of implementation and provide timely information to guide improvements. And it would not include a more comprehensive impact evaluation that considered unintended impacts (positive and negative) as well as intended impacts identified as goals.

Some organisations refer only to formal evaluations that are contracted out to external evaluators, which leaves out important methods for self-evaluation, peer evaluation and community-led evaluation.

A brief (4-page) overview that presents a statement from the American Evaluation Association defining evaluation as "a systematic process to determine merit, worth, value or significance".

The statement covers the following areas:

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Evaluation Phases and Processes

In general, evaluation processes go through four distinct phases: planning, implementation, completion, and reporting. While these mirror common program development steps, it is important to remember that your evaluation efforts may not always be linear, depending on where you are in your program or intervention.

The most important considerations during the planning phase of your project evaluation are prioritizing short and long-term goals, identifying your target audience(s), determining methods for collecting data, and assessing the feasibility of each for your target audience(s).

Implementation

This is the carrying out of your evaluation plan. Although it may vary considerably from project to project, you will likely concentrate on formative and process evaluation strategies at this point in your efforts.

Upon completion of your program, or the intermediate steps along the way, your evaluation efforts will be designed to examine long term outcomes and impacts, and summarize the overall performance of your program.

Reporting and Communication

In order to tell your story effectively, it's critical for you to consider what you want to communicate about the results or processes of your project, what audiences are most important to communicate with, and what are the most appropriate methods for disseminating your information.

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After reading this article you will learn about:- 1. Concept of Evaluation 2. Definition of Evaluation 3. Characteristics 4. Steps Involved 5. Purposes and Functions 6. Types 7. Need and Importance.

Concept of Evaluation:

In every walk of life the process of evaluation takes place in one or the other form. If the evaluation process is eliminated from human life then perhaps the aim of life may be lost. It is only through evaluation that one can discriminate between good and bad. The whole cycle of social development revolves around the evaluation process.

In education how much a child has succeeded in his aims, can only be determined through evaluation. Thus there is a close relationship between evaluation and aims.

Education is considered as an investment in human beings in terms of development of human resources, skills, motivation, knowledge and the like. Evaluation helps to build an educational programme, assess its achievements and improve upon its effectiveness.

It serves as an in-built monitor within the programme to review the progress in learning from time to time. It also provides valuable feedback on the design and the implementation of the programme. Thus, evaluation plays a significant role in any educational programme.

Evaluation plays an enormous role in the teaching-learning process. It helps teachers and learners to improve teaching and learning. Evaluation is a continuous process and a periodic exercise.

It helps in forming the values of judgement, educational status, or achievement of student. Evaluation in one form or the other is inevitable in teaching-learning, as in all fields of activity of education judgements need to be made.

In learning, it contributes to formulation of objectives, designing of learning experiences and assessment of learner performance. Besides this, it is very useful to bring improvement in teaching and curriculum. It provides accountability to the society, parents, and to the education system.

Let us discuss its uses briefly:

(i) Teaching:

Evaluation is concerned with assessing the effectiveness of teaching, teaching strategies, methods and techniques. It provides feedback to the teachers about their teaching and the learners about their learning.

(ii) Curriculum:

The improvement in courses/curricula, texts and teaching materials is brought about with the help of evaluation.

(iii) Society:

Evaluation provides accountability to society in terms of the demands and requirements of the employment market.

(iv) Parents:

Evaluation mainly manifests itself in a perceived need for regular reporting to parents.

In brief, evaluation is a very important requirement for the education system. It fulfills various purposes in systems of education like quality control in education, selection/entrance to a higher grade or tertiary level.

It also helps one to take decisions about success in specific future activities and provides guidance to further studies and occupation. Some of the educationists view evaluation virtually synonymous with that of learner appraisal, but evaluation has an expanded role.

It plays an effective role in questioning or challenging the objectives.

A simple representation explaining the role of evaluation in the teaching-learning process is shown below:

Evaluation has its four different aspects namely:

(i) Objectives,

(ii) Learning experiences,

(iii) Learner appraisal and the, and 

(iv) Relationship between the three.

Definition of Evaluation :

The term evaluation conveys several meanings in education and psychology.

Different authors have different notions of evaluation:

1. Encyclopedia of Education Research:

To measure means to observe or determine the magnitude of variate; evaluation means assessment or appraisal.

2. James M. Bradfield:

Evaluation is the assignment of symbols to phenomenon, in order to characterise the worth or value of a phenomenon, usually with reference to some social, cultural or scientific standards.

3. Gronlund and Linn:

Evaluation is a systematic process of collecting, analysing and interpreting information to determine the extent to which pupils are achieving instructional objectives.

Perhaps the most extended definition of evaluation has been supplied by C.E. Beeby (1977), who described evaluation as “the systematic collection and interpretation of evidence leading as a part of process to a judgement of value with a view to action.”

In this definition, there are the following four key elements:

(i) Systematic collection of evidence.

(ii) Its interpretation.

(iii) Judgement of value.

(iv) With a view to action.

Let us discuss the importance of each element in defining evaluation. The first element ‘systematic collection’ implies that whatever information is gathered, should be acquired in a systematic and planned way with some degree of precision.

The second element in Beeby’s definition, ‘interpretation of evidence’, is a critical aspect of the evaluation process. The mere collection of evidence does not by itself constitute evaluation work. The information gathered for the evaluation of an educational programme must be carefully interpreted. Sometimes, un-interpreted evidence is presented to indicate the presence (or absence) of quality in an educational venture.

For example, in a two year programme in computers, it was observed that almost two-third of each entering class failed to complete the two years programme. On closer examination it was found that most of the dropouts after one year were offered good jobs by companies.

The supervisors of companies felt that the one year of training was not only more than adequate for entry and second level positions but provided the foundation for further advancement. Under such circumstances, the dropout rate before programme completion was no indication of programme failure or deficiency.

The third element of Beeby’s definition, ‘judgement of value’, takes evaluation far beyond the level of mere description of what is happening in an educational enterprise, but requires judgements about the worth of an educational endeavour.

Thus, evaluation not only involves gathering and interpreting information about how well an educational programme is succeeding in reaching its goals but judgements about the goals themselves. It involves questions about how well a programme is helping to meet larger educational goals.

The last element of Beeby’s definition, ‘with a view to action’, introduces the distinction between an undertaking that results in a judgement of value with no specific reference to action (conclusion-oriented) and one that is deliberately undertaken for the sake of future action (decision-oriented).

Educational evaluation is clearly decision-oriented and is undertaken with the intention that some action will take place as a result. It is intended to lead to better policies and practices in education.

Characteristics of Evaluation :

The analysis of all the above definitions makes us able to draw following characteristics of evaluation:

1. Evaluation implies a systematic process which omits the casual uncontrolled observation of pupils.

2. Evaluation is a continuous process. In an ideal situation, the teaching- learning process on the one hand and the evaluation procedure on the other hand, go together. It is certainly a wrong belief that the evaluation procedure follows the teaching-learning process.

3. Evaluation emphasises the broad personality changes and major objectives of an educational programme. Therefore, it includes not only subject-matter achievements but also attitudes, interests and ideals, ways of thinking, work habits and personal and social adaptability.

4. Evaluation always assumes that educational objectives have previously been identified and defined. This is the reason why teachers are expected not to lose sight of educational objectives while planning and carrying out the teaching-learning process either in the classroom or outside it.

5. A comprehensive programme of evaluation involves the use of many procedures (for example, analytico-synthetic, heuristic, experimental, lecture, etc.); a great variety of tests (for example, essay type, objective type, etc.); and other necessary techniques (for example, socio-metric, controlled-observation techniques, etc.).

6. Learning is more important than teaching. Teaching has no value if it does not result in learning on the part of the pupils.

7. Objectives and accordingly learning experiences should be so relevant that ultimately they should direct the pupils towards the accomplishment of educational goals.

8. To assess the students and their complete development brought about through education is evaluation.

9. Evaluation is the determination of the congruence between the performance and objectives.

Steps Involved in Evaluation :

Following are the few steps involved in the process of evaluation:

(i) Identifying and Defining General Objectives:

In the evaluation process first step is to determine what to evaluation, i.e., to set down educational objectives. What kind of abilities and skills should be developed when a pupil studies, say, Mathematics, for one year? What type of understanding should be developed in the pupil who learns his mother tongue? Unless the teacher identifies and states the objectives, these questions will remain unanswered.

The process of identifying and defining educational objectives is a complex one; there is no simple or single procedure which suits all teachers. Some prefer to begin with the course content, some with general aims, and some with lists of objectives suggested by curriculum experts in the area.

While stating the objectives, therefore, we can successfully focus our attention on the product i.e., the pupil’s behaviour, at the end of a course of study and state it in terms of his knowledge, understanding, skill, application, attitudes, interests, appreciation, etc.

(ii) Identifying and Defining Specific Objectives:

It has been said that learning is the modification of behaviour in a desirable direction. The teacher is more concerned with a student’s learning than with anything else. Changes in behaviour are an indication of learning. These changes, arising out of classroom instruction, are known as the learning outcome.

What type of learning outcome is expected from a student after he has undergone the teaching-learning process is the first and foremost concern of the teacher. This is possible only when the teacher identifies and defines the objectives in terms of behavioural changes, i.e., learning outcomes.

These specific objectives will provide direction to teaching-learning process. Not only that it will also be useful in planning and organising the learning activities, and in planning and organising evaluation procedures too.

Thus, specific objectives determine two things; one, the various types of learning situations to be provided by the class teacher 10 his pupils and second, the method to be employed to evaluate both—the objectives and the learning experiences.

(iii) Selecting Teaching Points:

The next step in the process of evaluation is to select teaching points through which the objectives can be realised. Once the objectives are set up, the next step is to decide the content (curriculum, syllabus, course) to help in the realisation of objectives.

For the teachers, the objectives and courses of school subjects are ready at hand. His job is to analyse the content of the subject matter into teaching points and to find out what specific objectives can be adequately realised through the introduction of those teaching points.

(iv) Planning Suitable Learning Activities:

In the fourth step, the teacher will have to plan the learning activities to be provided to the pupils and, at the same time, bear two things in mind—the objectives as well as teaching points. The process then becomes three dimensional, the three co-ordinates being objectives, teaching points and learning activities. The teacher gets the objectives and content readymade.

He is completely free to select the type of learning activities. He may employ the analytico-synthetic method; he may utilise the inducto-deductive reasoning; he may employ the experimental method or a demonstration method; or he may put a pupil in the position of a discoverer; he may employ the lecture method; or he may ask the pupils to divide into groups and to do a sort of group work followed by a general discussion; and so on. One thing he has to remember is that he should select only such activities as will make it possible for him to realise his objectives.

(v) Evaluating:

In the fifth step, the teacher observes and measures the changes in the behaviour of his pupils through testing. This step adds one more dimension to the evaluation process. While testing, he will keep in mind three things-objectives, teaching points and learning activities; but his focus will be on the attainment of objectives. This he cannot do without enlisting the teaching points and planning learning activities of his pupils.

Here the teacher will construct a test by making the maximum use of the teaching points already introduced in the class and the learning experiences already acquired by his pupils. He may plan for an oral lest or a written test; he may administer an essay type test or an objective type of lest; or he may arrange a practical test.

(vi) Using the Results as Feedback:

The last, but not the least, important step in the evaluation process is the use of results as feedback. If the teacher, after testing his pupils, finds that the objectives have not been realised to a great extent, he will use the results in reconsidering the objectives and in organising the learning activities.

He will retrace his steps to find out the drawbacks in the objectives or in the learning activities he has provided for his students. This is known as feedback. Whatever results the teacher gets after testing his pupils should be utilised for the betterment of the students.

Purposes and Functions of Evaluation :

Evaluation plays a vital role in teaching learning experiences. It is an integral part of the instructional programmes. It provides information’s on the basis of which many educational decisions are taken. We are to stick to the basic function of evaluation which is required to be practiced for pupil and his learning processes.

Evaluation has the following functions:

1. Placement Functions:

a. Evaluation helps to study the entry behaviour of the children in all respects.

b. That helps to undertake special instructional programmes.

c. To provide for individualisation of instruction.

d. It also helps to select pupils for higher studies, for different vocations and specialised courses.

2. Instructional Functions:

a. A planned evaluation helps a teacher in deciding and developing the ways, methods, techniques of teaching.

b. Helps to formulate and reformulate suitable and realistic objectives of instruction.

c. Which helps to improve instruction and to plan appropriate and adequate techniques of instruction.

d. And also helps in the improvement of curriculum.

e. To assess different educational practices.

f. Ascertains how far could learning objectives be achieved.

g. To improve instructional procedures and quality of teachers.

h. To plan appropriate and adequate learning strategies.

3. Diagnostic Functions :

a. Evaluation has to diagnose the weak points in the school programme as well as weakness of the students.

b. To suggest relevant remedial programmes.

c. The aptitude, interest and intelligence are also to be recognised in each individual child so that he may be energised towards a right direction.

d. To adopt instruction to the different needs of the pupils.

e. To evaluate the progress of these weak students in terms of their capacity, ability and goal.

4. Predictive functions :

a. To discover potential abilities and aptitudes among the learners.

b. Thus to predict the future success of the children.

c. And also helps the child in selecting the right electives.

5. Administrative Functions :

a. To adopt better educational policy and decision making.

b. Helps to classify pupils in different convenient groups.

c. To promote students to next higher class,

d. To appraise the supervisory practices.

e. To have appropriate placement.

f. To draw comparative statement on the performance of different children.

g. To have sound planning.

h. Helps to test the efficiency of teachers in providing suitable learning experiences.

i. To mobilise public opinion and to improve public relations.

j. Helps in developing a comprehensive criterion tests.

6. Guidance Functions :

a. Assists a person in making decisions about courses and careers.

b. Enables a learner to know his pace of learning and lapses in his learning.

c. Helps a teacher to know the children in details and to provide necessary educational, vocational and personal guidance.

7. Motivation Functions :

a. To motivate, to direct, to inspire and to involve the students in learning.

b. To reward their learning and thus to motivate them towards study.

8. Development Functions:

a. Gives reinforcement and feedback to teacher, students and the teaching learning processes.

b. Assists in the modification and improvement of the teaching strategies and learning experiences.

c. Helps in the achievement of educational objectives and goals.

9. Research Functions:

a. Helps to provide data for research generalisation.

b. Evaluation clears the doubts for further studies and researches.

c. Helps to promote action research in education.

10. Communication Functions:

a. To communicate the results of progress to the students.

b. To intimate the results of progress to parents.

c. To circulate the results of progress to other schools.

Types of Evaluation :

Evaluation can be classified into different categories in many ways.

Some important classifications are as follows:

1. Placement Evaluation:

Placement evaluation is designed to place the right person in the right place. It ensures the entry performance of the pupil. The future success of the instructional process depends on the success of placement evaluation.

Placement evaluation aims at evaluating the pupil’s entry behaviour in a sequence of instruction. In other words the main goal of such evaluation is to determine the level or position of the child in the instructional sequence.

We have a planned scheme of instruction for classroom which is supposed to bring a change in pupil’s behaviour in an orderly manner. Then we prepare or place the students for planned instruction for their better prospects.

When a pupil is to undertake a new instruction, it is essential to know the answer of the following questions:

a. Does the pupil possess required knowledge and skills for the instruction?

b. Whether the pupil has already mastered some of the instructional objectives or not?

c. Whether the mode of instruction is suitable to pupil’s interests, work habits and personal characteristics?

We get the answer to all the probable questions by using a variety of tests, self report inventories, observational techniques, case study, attitude test and achievement tests.

Sometimes past experiences, which inspire for present learning also lead to the further placement in a better position or admission. This type of evaluation is helpful for admission of pupils into a new course of instruction.

i. Aptitude test

ii. Self-reporting inventories

iii. Observational techniques

iv. Medical entrance exam.

v. Engineering or Agriculture entrance exam.

2. Formative Evaluation :

Formative evaluation is used to monitor the learning progress of students during the period of instruction. Its main objective is to provide continuous feedback to both teacher and student concerning learning successes and failures while instruction is in process.

Feedback to students provides reinforcement of successful learning and identifies the specific learning errors that need correction. Feedback to teacher provides information for modifying instruction and for prescribing group and individual remedial work.

Formative evaluation helps a teacher to ascertain the pupil-progress from time to time. At the end of a topic or unit or segment or a chapter the teacher can evaluate the learning outcomes basing on which he can modify his methods, techniques and devices of teaching to provide better learning experiences.

The teacher can even modify the instructional objectives, if necessary. In other words, formative evaluation provides feedback to the teacher. The teacher can know which aspects of the learning task were mastered and which aspects were poorly or not at all mastered by pupils. Formative evaluation helps the teacher to assess the relevance and appropriateness of the learning experiences provided and to assess instantly how far the goals are being fulfilled.

Thus, it aims at improvement of instruction. Formative evaluation also provides feedback to pupils. The pupil knows his learning progress from time to time. Thus, formative evaluation motivates the pupils for better learning. As such, it helps the teacher to take appropriate remedial measures. “The idea of generating information to be used for revising or improving educational practices is the core concept of formative evaluation.”

It is concerned with the process of development of learning. In the sense, evaluation is concerned not only with the appraisal of the achievement but also with its improvement. Education is a continuous process.

Therefore, evaluation and development must go hand in hand. The evaluation has to take place in every possible situation or activity and throughout the period of formal education of a pupil.

Cronback is the first educationist, who gave the best argument for formative evaluation. According to him, the greatest service evaluation can perform is to identify aspects of the course where education is desirable. Thus, this type of evaluation is an essential tool to provide feedback to the learners for improvement of their self-learning and to the teachers for improvement of their methodologies of teaching, nature of instructional materials, etc.

It is a positive evaluation because of its attempt to create desirable learning goals and tools for achieving such goals. Formative evaluation is generally concerned with the internal agent of evaluation, like participation of the learner in the learning process.

The functions of formation evaluation are:

(a) Diagnosing:

Diagnosing is concerned with determining the most appropriate method or instructional materials conducive to learning.

(b) Placement:

Placement is concerned with the finding out the position of an individual in the curriculum from which he has to start learning.

(c) Monitoring:

Monitoring is concerned with keeping track of the day-to- day progress of the learners and to point out changes necessary in the methods of teaching, instructional strategies, etc.

Characteristics of Formative Evaluation :

The characteristics of formative evaluation are as follows:

a. It is an integral part of the learning process.

b. It occurs, frequently, during the course of instruction.

c. Its results are made immediately known to the learners.

d. It may sometime take form of teacher observation only.

e. It reinforces learning of the students.

f. It pinpoints difficulties being faced by a weak learner.

g. Its results cannot be used for grading or placement purposes.

h. It helps in modification of instructional strategies including method of teaching, immediately.

i. It motivates learners, as it provides them with knowledge of progress made by them.

j. It sees role of evaluation as a process.

k. It is generally a teacher-made test.

l. It does not take much time to be constructed.

i. Monthly tests.

ii. Class tests.

iii. Periodical assessment.

iv. Teacher’s observation, etc.

3. Diagnostic Evaluation :

It is concerned with identifying the learning difficulties or weakness of pupils during instruction. It tries to locate or discover the specific area of weakness of a pupil in a given course of instruction and also tries to provide remedial measure.

N.E. Gronlund says “…… formative evaluation provides first-aid treatment for simple learning problems whereas diagnostic evaluation searches for the underlying causes of those problems that do not respond to first-aid treatment.”

When the teacher finds that inspite of the use of various alternative methods, techniques and corrective prescriptions the child still faces learning difficulties, he takes recourse to a detailed diagnosis through specifically designed tests called ‘diagnostic tests’.

Diagnosis can be made by employing observational techniques, too. In case of necessity the services of psychological and medical specialists can be utilised for diagnosing serious learning handicaps. 

4. Summative Evaluation :

Summative evaluation is done at the end of a course of instruction to know to what extent the objectives previously fixed have been accomplished. In other words, it is the evaluation of pupils’ achievement at the end of a course.

The main objective of the summative evaluation is to assign grades to the pupils. It indicates the degree to which the students have mastered the course content. It helps to judge the appropriateness of instructional objectives. Summative evaluation is generally the work of standardised tests.

It tries to compare one course with another. The approaches of summative evaluation imply some sort of final comparison of one item or criteria against another. It has the danger of making negative effects.

This evaluation may brand a student as a failed candidate, and thus causes frustration and setback in the learning process of the candidate, which is an example of the negative effect.

The traditional examinations are generally summative evaluation tools. Tests for formative evaluation are given at regular and frequent intervals during a course; whereas tests for summative evaluation are given at the end of a course or at the end of a fairly long period (say, a semester).

The functions of this type of evaluation are:

(a) Crediting:

Crediting is concerned with collecting evidence that a learner has achieved some instructional goals in contents in respect to a defined curricular programme.

(b) Certifying:

Certifying is concerned with giving evidence that the learner is able to perform a job according to the previously determined standards.

(c) Promoting:

It is concerned with promoting pupils to next higher class.

(d) Selecting:

Selecting the pupils for different courses after completion of a particular course structure.

Characteristics of Summative Evaluation :

a. It is terminal in nature as it comes at the end of a course of instruction (or a programme).

b. It is judgemental in character in the sense that it judges the achievement of pupils.

c. It views evaluation “as a product”, because its chief concern is to point out the levels of attainment.

d. It cannot be based on teachers observations only.

e. It does not pin-point difficulties faced by the learner.

f. Its results can be used for placement or grading purposes.

g. It reinforces learning of the students who has learnt an area.

h. It may or may not motivate a learner. Sometimes, it may have negative effect.

1. Traditional school and university examination,

2. Teacher-made tests,

3. Standardised tests,

4. Practical and oral tests, and 

5. Rating scales, etc.

5. Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Evaluation:

Two alternative approaches to educational testing that must be thoroughly understood are norm-referenced testing and criterion-referenced testing. Although there are similarities between these two approaches to testing, there are also fundamental differences between norm and criterion referenced testing.

There have been disputations about the relative virtues of norm and criterion-referenced measurements for a long time. However, a fundamental fact is recognised by most of concerned people that norm-referenced and criterion-referenced testing are complementary approaches.

(i) Criterion-Referenced Evaluation :

When the evaluation is concerned with the performance of the individual in terms of what he can do or the behaviour he can demonstrate, is termed as criterion- referenced evaluation. In this evaluation there is a reference to a criterion.

But there is no reference to the performance of other individuals in the group. In it we refer an individual’s performance to a predetermined criterion which is well defined.

(i) Raman got 93 marks in a test of Mathematics.

(ii) A typist types 60 words per minute.

(iii) Amit’s score in a reading test is 70.

A simple working definition:

A criterion-referenced test is used to ascertain an individual’s status with respect to a defined achievement domain.

In the above examples there is no reference to the performance of other members of the group. Thus criterion-referenced evaluation determines an individual’s status with reference to well defined criterion behaviour.

It is an attempt to interpret test results in terms of clearly defined learning outcomes which serve as referents (criteria). Success of criterion-reference test lies in the delineation of all defined levels of achievement which are usually specified in terms of behaviourally stated instructional objectives.

The purpose of criterion-referenced evaluation/test is to assess the objectives. It is the objective based test. The objectives are assessed, in terms of behavioural changes among the students.

Such type of test assesses the ability of the learner in relation to the criterion behaviour. Glasar (1963) first used this term, ‘Criterion-reference test’ to describe the learner’s achievement on a performance continuum.

Hively and Millman (1974) suggested a new term, ‘domain-referenced test’ and to them the word ‘domain’ has a wider connotation. A criterion referenced test can measure one or more assessment domain.

(ii) Norm Referenced Evaluation :

Norm-referenced evaluation is the traditional class-based assignment of numerals to the attribute being measured. It means that the measurement act relates to some norm, group or a typical performance.

It is an attempt to interpret the test results in terms of the performance of a certain group. This group is a norm group because it serves as a referent of norm for making judgements.

Test scores are neither interpreted in terms of an individual (self-referenced) nor in terms of a standard of performance or a pre-determined acceptable level of achievement called the criterion behaviour (criterion-referenced). The measurement is made in terms of a class or any other norm group.

Almost all our classroom tests, public examinations and standardised tests are norm-referenced as they are interpreted in terms of a particular class and judgements are formed with reference to the class.

(i) Raman stood first in Mathematics test in his class.

(ii) The typist who types 60 words per minute stands above 90 percent of the typists who appeared the interview.

(iii) Amit surpasses 65% of students of his class in reading test.

A norm-referenced test is used to ascertain an individual’s status with respect to the performance of other individuals on that test.

In the above examples, the person’s performance is compared to others of their group and the relative standing position of the person in his/her group is mentioned. We compare an individual’s performance with similar information about the performance of others.

That is why selection decisions always depend on norm- referenced judgements. A major requirement of norm-referenced judgements is that individuals being measured and individuals forming the group or norm, are alike. In norm-referenced tests very easy and very difficult items are discarded and items of medium difficulty are preferred because our aim is to study relative achievement.

Need and Importance of Evaluation :

Now a days, education has multifold programmes and activities to inculcate in students a sense of common values, integrated approach, group feelings, community interrelationship leading to national integration and knowledge to adjust in different situations.

Evaluation in education assesses the effectiveness of worth of an educational experience which is measured against instructional objectives.

Evaluation is done to fulfill the following needs:

1. (a) It helps a teacher to know his pupils in details. Today, education is child-centered. So, child’s abilities, interest, aptitude, attitude etc., are to be properly studied so as to arrange instruction accordingly.

(b) It helps the teacher to determine, evaluate and refine his instructional techniques.

(c) It helps him in setting, refining and clarifying the objectives.

(d) It helps him to know the entry behaviour of the students.

2. It helps an administrator.

(a) In educational planning and

(b) In educational decisions on selections, classification and placement.

3. Education is a complex process. Thus, there is a great need of continuous evaluation of its processes and products. It helps to design better educational programmes.

4. The parents are eager to know about the educational progress of their children and evaluation alone can assess the pupils’ progress from time to time.

5. A sound choice of objectives depends on an accurate information regarding pupil’s abilities, interest, attitude and personality traits and such information is obtained through evaluation.

6. Evaluation helps us to know whether the instructional objectives have been achieved or not. As such evaluation helps planning of better strategies for education.

7. A sound programme of evaluation clarifies the aims of education and it helps us to know whether aims and objectives are attainable or not. As such, it helps in reformulation of aims and objectives.

8. Evaluation studies the ‘total child’ and thus helps us to undertake special instructional programmes like enrichment programme, for the bright and remedial programmes for the backward.

9. It helps a student in encouraging good study habits, in increasing motivation and in developing abilities and skills, in knowing the results of progress and in getting appropriate feedback.

10. It helps us to undertake appropriate guidance services.

From the above discussions it is quite evident that evaluation is quite essential for promoting pupil growth. It is equally helpful lo parents, teachers, administrators and students.

Related Articles:

• Difference between Formative and Summative Evaluation
• Evaluation in Education: Meaning, Principles and Functions

Evaluation , Teaching and Learning Process , Educational Statistics

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Evaluating Entering Research

WISCIENCE provides centralized common assessment and evaluation surveys that use the Entering Research Learning Assessment (ERLA) to promote and systematize the evaluation of undergraduate and graduate research experiences and training programs. These surveys are available to all trained facilitators of Entering Research ( ER ) , regardless of whether they are using  ER  activities in their implementations. Programs using the  ER curriculum can also use standardized program/course evaluation questions designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum in training program and workshop implementations. For more information on attending a Facilitator Training workshop, visit the Facilitating Entering Research workshop page. Keep reading to learn more about the evaluation process.

Entering Research  Evaluation Process

Evaluation surveys are administered by WISCIENCE and include standard questions. Research training program directors and facilitators can also add customized questions to collect site or training-specific information.

Standard evaluation surveys are typically administered post-training and are available for all types of undergraduate and graduate research trainings, including but not limited to, courses, seminars, summer programs, workshop series, and standalone workshops.

The evaluation process consists of 5 steps:

Step 1: complete the  implementation tracking and evaluation request form  at least 3 weeks before the end of your training..

This form will require you to provide implementation details such as training dates, names and contact information of additional facilitators, target audience, expected number of participants, and location. Timely completion of this form ensures that your evaluation can be provided. You can expect to hear from a member of the Entering Research evaluation team within two business days of submitting your evaluation form.

Step 2: WISCIENCE creates your survey.

Once you have submitted the evaluation request form, WISCIENCE will create your survey and share a preview of the survey with you for your review. At this point, any customized questions and revisions will be incorporated into your survey.

Step 3: Administer your survey.

Facilitators have the option of either: a) sending names and email addresses to WISCIENCE to distribute the survey on their behalf; or b) administering the survey themselves using a common link sent to them by WISCIENCE. The survey or link to the survey will be sent out on the day you specify on your evaluation request form. WISCIENCE will monitor response rates based on your expected number of participants.

Step 4: Complete a brief implementation survey.

Once your trainee survey has launched, you or your facilitators will be sent a brief survey about your implementation to complete.

Step 5: WISCIENCE sends a summary report to you.

Once the survey has closed, you will be sent a report of the aggregated survey data. This includes descriptive data, including information from any customized questions or scales, and visualizations that help you compare trainee and mentor responses on the Entering Research Learning Assessment.

Step 6 (optional): Ability to access raw survey data.

Upon request, survey data can be provided to program directors in the following ways:

• De-identified, raw survey data for purposes of program evaluation.
• De-identified, raw survey data for research purposes (Note: an IRB approval number and documentation are required to ensure that the data are protected).
• Identifiable raw survey data are also available with appropriate IRB approval and documentation.

Request for access to the raw survey data can be submitted at the time the evaluation request form is submitted or by emailing  [email protected]  with your request.

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This paper is in the following e-collection/theme issue:

Published on 21.6.2024 in Vol 10 (2024)

Evaluation of ChatGPT-Generated Differential Diagnosis for Common Diseases With Atypical Presentation: Descriptive Research

Authors of this article:

• Kiyoshi Shikino 1, 2 , MHPE, MD, PhD ; 
• Taro Shimizu 3 , MSc, MPH, MBA, MD, PhD ; 
• Yuki Otsuka 4 , MD, PhD ; 
• Masaki Tago 5 , MD, PhD ; 
• Hiromizu Takahashi 6 , MD, PhD ; 
• Takashi Watari 7 , MHQS, MD, PhD ; 
• Yosuke Sasaki 8 , MD, PhD ; 
• Gemmei Iizuka 9, 10 , MD, PhD ; 
• Hiroki Tamura 1 , MD, PhD ; 
• Koichi Nakashima 11 , MD ; 
• Kotaro Kunitomo 12 , MD ; 
• Morika Suzuki 12, 13 , MD, PhD ; 
• Sayaka Aoyama 14 , MD ; 
• Shintaro Kosaka 15 , MD ; 
• Teiko Kawahigashi 16 , MD, PhD ; 
• Tomohiro Matsumoto 17 , MD, DDS, PhD ; 
• Fumina Orihara 17 , MD ; 
• Toru Morikawa 18 , MD, PhD ; 
• Toshinori Nishizawa 19 , MD ; 
• Yoji Hoshina 13 , MD ; 
• Yu Yamamoto 20 , MD ; 
• Yuichiro Matsuo 21 , MPH, MD ; 
• Yuto Unoki 22 , MD ; 
• Hirofumi Kimura 22 , MD ; 
• Midori Tokushima 23 , MD ; 
• Satoshi Watanuki 24 , MBA, MD ; 
• Takuma Saito 24 , MD ; 
• Fumio Otsuka 4 , MD, PhD ; 
• Yasuharu Tokuda 25, 26 , MPH, MD, PhD

1 Department of General Medicine, Chiba University Hospital, , Chiba, , Japan

2 Tama Family Clinic, , Kanagawa, , Japan

3 Department of General Medicine, Awa Regional Medical Center, , Chiba, , Japan

4 Department of General Medicine, National Hospital Organization Kumamoto Medical Center, , Kumamoto, , Japan

5 Department of Neurology, University of Utah, , Salt Lake City, UT, , United States

6 Department of Internal Medicine, Mito Kyodo General Hospital, , Ibaraki, , Japan

7 Tokyo Metropolitan Hiroo Hospital, , Tokyo, , Japan

8 Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, , Houston, TX, , United States

9 Division of General Medicine, Nerima Hikarigaoka Hospital, , Tokyo, , Japan

10 Department of General Medicine, Nara City Hospital, , Nara, , Japan

11 Department of General Internal Medicine, St. Luke’s International Hospital, , Tokyo, , Japan

12 Department of Community-Oriented Medical Education, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, , Chiba, , Japan

13 Division of General Medicine, Center for Community Medicine, Jichi Medical University, , Tochigi, , Japan

14 Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Health Economics, The Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, , Tokyo, , Japan

15 Department of General Internal Medicine, Iizuka Hospital, , Fukuoka, , Japan

16 Saga Medical Career Support Center, Saga University Hospital, , Saga, , Japan

17 Department of Emergency and General Medicine, Tokyo Metropolitan Tama Medical Center, , Tokyo, , Japan

18 Muribushi Okinawa Center for Teaching Hospitals, , Okinawa, , Japan

19 Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, , Tokyo, , Japan

20 Department of Diagnostic and Generalist Medicine, Dokkyo Medical University, , Tochigi, , Japan

21 Department of General Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, , Okayama, , Japan

22 Department of General Medicine, Saga University Hospital, , Saga, , Japan

23 Department of General Medicine, Juntendo University Hospital Faculty of Medicine, , Tokyo, , Japan

24 Integrated Clinical Education Center Hospital Integrated Clinical Education, Kyoto University Hospital, , Kyoto, , Japan

25 Department of General Medicine and Emergency Care, Toho University School of Medicine, , Tokyo, , Japan

26 Center for Preventive Medical Sciences, Chiba University, , Chiba, , Japan

Corresponding Author:

Kiyoshi Shikino, MHPE, MD, PhD

Background: The persistence of diagnostic errors, despite advances in medical knowledge and diagnostics, highlights the importance of understanding atypical disease presentations and their contribution to mortality and morbidity. Artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative pre-trained transformers like GPT-4, holds promise for improving diagnostic accuracy, but requires further exploration in handling atypical presentations.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of ChatGPT in generating differential diagnoses for atypical presentations of common diseases, with a focus on the model’s reliance on patient history during the diagnostic process.

Methods: We used 25 clinical vignettes from the Journal of Generalist Medicine characterizing atypical manifestations of common diseases. Two general medicine physicians categorized the cases based on atypicality. ChatGPT was then used to generate differential diagnoses based on the clinical information provided. The concordance between AI-generated and final diagnoses was measured, with a focus on the top-ranked disease (top 1) and the top 5 differential diagnoses (top 5).

Results: ChatGPT’s diagnostic accuracy decreased with an increase in atypical presentation. For category 1 (C1) cases, the concordance rates were 17% (n=1) for the top 1 and 67% (n=4) for the top 5. Categories 3 (C3) and 4 (C4) showed a 0% concordance for top 1 and markedly lower rates for the top 5, indicating difficulties in handling highly atypical cases. The χ 2 test revealed no significant difference in the top 1 differential diagnosis accuracy between less atypical (C1+C2) and more atypical (C3+C4) groups ( χ ² 1 =2.07; n=25; P =.13). However, a significant difference was found in the top 5 analyses, with less atypical cases showing higher accuracy ( χ ² 1 =4.01; n=25; P =.048).

Conclusions: ChatGPT-4 demonstrates potential as an auxiliary tool for diagnosing typical and mildly atypical presentations of common diseases. However, its performance declines with greater atypicality. The study findings underscore the need for AI systems to encompass a broader range of linguistic capabilities, cultural understanding, and diverse clinical scenarios to improve diagnostic utility in real-world settings.

Introduction

For the past decade, medical knowledge and diagnostic techniques have expanded worldwide, becoming more accessible with remarkable advancements in clinical testing and useful reference systems [ 1 ]. Despite these advancements, misdiagnosis significantly contributes to mortality, making it a noteworthy public health issue [ 2 , 3 ]. Studies have revealed discrepancies between clinical and postmortem autopsy diagnoses in at least 25% of cases, with diagnostic errors contributing to approximately 10% of deaths and to 6%‐17% of hospital adverse events [ 4 - 8 ]. The significance of atypical presentations as a contributor to diagnostic errors is especially notable, with recent findings suggesting that such presentations are prevalent in a substantial portion of outpatient consultations and are associated with a higher risk of diagnostic inaccuracies [ 9 ]. This underscores the persistent challenge in diagnosing patients correctly due to the variability in disease presentation and due to the reliance on medical history, which is the basis for approximately 80% of the medical diagnosis [ 10 , 11 ].

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care, particularly through natural language processing (NLP) models such as generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs), has opened new avenues in medical diagnosis [ 12 ]. Recent studies on AI medical diagnosis across various specialties—including neurology [ 13 ], dermatology [ 14 ], radiology [ 15 ], and pediatrics [ 16 ]—have shown promising results and improved diagnostic accuracy, efficiency, and safety. Among these developments, GPT-4, a state-of-the-art AI model developed by OpenAI, has demonstrated remarkable capabilities in understanding and processing medical language, significantly outperforming its predecessors in medical knowledge assessments and potentially transforming medical education and clinical decision support systems [ 12 , 17 ].

Notably, one study found that ChatGPT (OpenAI) could pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE), highlighting its potential in medical education and medical diagnosis [ 18 , 19 ]. Moreover, in controlled settings, ChatGPT has shown over 90% accuracy in diagnosing common diseases with typical presentations based on chief concerns and patient history [ 20 ]. However, while research has examined the diagnostic accuracy of AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, in generating differential diagnoses for complex clinical vignettes derived from general internal medicine (GIM) department case reports, their diagnostic accuracy in handling atypical presentations of common diseases remains less explored [ 21 , 22 ]. There has been a notable study aimed at evaluating the accuracy of the differential diagnosis lists generated by both third- and fourth-generation ChatGPT models using case vignettes from case reports published by the Department of General Internal Medicine of Dokkyo Medical University Hospital, Japan. ChatGPT with GPT-4 was found to achieve a correct diagnosis rate in the top 10 differential diagnosis lists, top 5 lists, and top diagnoses of 83%, 81%, and 60%, respectively—rates comparable to those of physicians. Although the study highlights the potential of ChatGPT as a supplementary tool for physicians, particularly in the context of GIM, it also underlines the importance of further investigation into the diagnostic accuracy of ChatGPT with atypical disease presentations ( Figure 1 ). Given the crucial role of patient history in diagnosis and the inherent variability in disease presentation, our study expands upon this foundation to assess the accuracy of ChatGPT in diagnosing common diseases with atypical presentations [ 23 ].

More specifically, this study aims to evaluate the hypothesis that the diagnostic accuracy of AI, exemplified by ChatGPT, declines when dealing with atypical presentations of common diseases. We hypothesize that despite the known capabilities of AI in recognizing typical disease patterns, its performance will be significantly challenged when presented with clinical cases that deviate from these patterns, leading to reduced diagnostic precision. Consequently, this study seeks to systematically assess this hypothesis and explore its implications for the integration of AI in clinical practice. By exploring the contribution of AI-assisted medical diagnoses to common diseases with atypical presentations and patient history, the study assesses the accuracy of ChatGPT in reaching a clinical diagnosis based on the medical information provided. By reevaluating the significance of medical information, our study contributes to the ongoing discourse on optimizing diagnostic processes—both conventional and AI assisted.

Study Design, Settings, and Participants

This study used a series of 25 clinical vignettes from a special issue of the Journal of Generalist Medicine , a Japanese journal, published on March 5, 2024. These vignettes, which exemplify atypical presentations of common diseases, were selected for their alignment with our research aim to explore the impact of atypical disease presentations in AI-assisted diagnosis. The clinical vignettes were derived from real patient cases and curated by an editorial team specializing in GIM, with final edits by KS. Each case included comprehensive details such as age, gender, chief concern, medical history, medication history, current illness, and physical examination findings, along with the ultimate and initial misdiagnoses.

An expert panel comprising 2 general medicine and medical education physicians, T Shimizu and Y Otsuka, initially reviewed these cases. After deliberation, they selected all 25 cases that exemplified atypical presentations of common diseases. Subsequently, T Shimizu and Y Otsuka evaluated their degree of atypicality and categorized them into 4 distinct levels, using the following definition as a guide: “Atypical presentations have a shortage of prototypical features. These can be defined as features that are most frequently encountered in patients with the disease, features encountered in advanced presentations of the disease, or simply features of the disease commonly listed in medical textbooks. Atypical presentations may also have features with unexpected values” [ 24 ]. Category 1 was assigned to cases that were closest to the typical presentations of common diseases, whereas category 4 was designated for those that were markedly atypical. In instances where T Shimizu and Y Otsuka did not reach consensus, a third expert, KS, was consulted. Through collaborative discussions, the panel reached a consensus on the final category for each case, ensuring a systematic and comprehensive evaluation of the atypical presentations of common diseases ( Figure 2 ).

Our analysis was conducted on March 12, 2024, using ChatGPT’s proficiency in Japanese. The language processing was enabled by the standard capabilities of the ChatGPT model, requiring no additional adaptation or programming by our team. We exclusively used text-based input for the generative AI, excluding tables or images to maintain a focus on linguistic data. This approach is consistent with the typical constraints of language-based AI diagnostic tools. Inputs to ChatGPT consisted of direct transcriptions of the original case reports in Japanese, ensuring the authenticity of the medical information was preserved. We measured the concordance between AI-generated differential diagnoses and the vignettes’ final diagnoses, as well as the initial misdiagnoses. Our investigation entailed inputting clinical information—including medical history, physical examination, and laboratory data—into ChatGPT, followed by posing this request: “List of differential diagnoses in order of likelihood, based on the provided vignettes’ information,” labeled as “GAI [generative AI] differential diagnoses.”

Data Collection and Measurements

We assigned the correct diagnosis for each of these 25 cases as “final diagnosis.” We then used ChatGPT to generate differential diagnoses (“GAI differential diagnoses”). For each case, ChatGPT was prompted to create a list of differential diagnoses. Patient information was provided in full each time, without incremental inputs. The concordance rate between “final diagnosis,” “misdiagnosis,” and “GAI differential diagnoses” was then assessed. To extract a list of diagnoses from ChatGPT, we concluded each input session with the phrase “List of differential diagnoses in order of likelihood, based on the provided vignettes’ information.” We measured the percentage at which the final diagnosis or misdiagnosis was included in the top-ranked disease (top 1) and within the top 5 differential diagnoses (top 5) generated by ChatGPT ( Figure 3 ).

Data Analysis

Two board-certified physicians working in the medical diagnostic department of our facility judged the concordance between the AI-proposed diagnoses and the final diagnosis. The 2 physicians are GIM board–certified. The number of years after graduation of the physicians was 7 and 17, respectively. A diagnosis was considered to match if the 2 physicians agreed to the concordance. We measured the interrater reliability with the κ coefficient (0.8‐1.0=almost perfect; 0.6‐0.8=substantial; 0.4‐0.6=moderate; and 0.2‐0.4=fair) [ 25 ]. To further analyze the accuracy of the top 1 and top 5 diagnoses, we used the χ ² or Fisher exact test, as appropriate. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS Statistics (version 26.0; IBM Corp) with the level of significance set at P <.05.

Ethics Approval

Our research did not involve humans, medical records, patient information, observations of public behaviors, or secondary data analyses; thus, it was exempt from ethical approval, informed consent requirements, and institutional review board approval. Additionally, as no identifying information was included, the data did not need to be anonymized or deidentified. We did not offer any compensation because there were no human participants in the study.

The 25 clinical vignettes comprised 11 male and 14 female patients, with ages ranging from 21 to 92 years. All individuals were older than 20 years, and 8 were older than 65 years. Table 1 , Multimedia Appendix 1 , and Multimedia Appendix 2 present these results. The correct final diagnosis listed in the Journal of Generalist Medicine clinical vignette as a common disease presenting atypical symptoms (labeled as “final diagnosis”) showed that “GAI differential diagnoses” and “final diagnosis” coincided in 12% (3/12) of cases within the first list of differential diagnoses, while “GAI differential diagnoses” and “final diagnosis” had a concordance rate of 44% (11/25) in 5 differential diagnoses. The interrater reliability was substantial (Cohen κ=0.84).

The analysis of the concordance rates between the “GAI differential diagnoses” generated by ChatGPT and the “final diagnosis” from the Journal of Generalist Medicine revealed distinct patterns across the 4 categories of atypical presentations ( Table 2 ). For the top 1 differential diagnosis, that is, category 1 (C1) cases, which were closest to a typical presentation, the concordance rate was 7% (n=1), whereas category 2 (C2) cases exhibited a slightly higher rate of 22% (n=2). Remarkably, categories 3 (C3) and 4 (C4), which represent more atypical cases, demonstrated no concordance (0%) in the top 1 differential diagnosis.

When the analysis was expanded to the top 5 differential diagnoses, the concordance rates varied across categories. C1 cases showed a significant increase in concordance, to 67% (n=4), indicating better performance of the “GAI differential diagnoses” when considering a broader range of possibilities. C2 cases had a concordance rate of 44% (n=4), followed by C3 cases at 25% (n=1) and C4 cases at 17% (n=1).

To assess the diagnostic accuracy of ChatGPT across varying levels of atypical presentations, we used the χ 2 test. Specifically, we compared the frequency of correct diagnoses in the top 1 and top 5 differential diagnoses provided by ChatGPT for cases categorized as C1+C2 (less atypical) versus C3+C4 (more atypical). For the top 1 differential diagnosis, there was no statistically significant difference in the number of correct diagnoses between the less atypical (C1+C2) and more atypical (C3+C4) groups ( χ ² 1 =2.07; n=25; P =.13). However, when expanding the analysis to the top 5 differential diagnoses, we found a statistically significant difference, with the less atypical group (C1+C2) demonstrating a higher number of correct diagnoses compared to the more atypical group (C3+C4 ) (χ ² 1 =4.01; n=25; P =.048).

a Final diagnosis indicates the final correct diagnosis listed in the Journal of Generalist Medicine clinical vignette as common disease presenting atypical symptoms.

b GAI: generative artificial intelligence.

c GAI diagnosis rank indicates the high-priority differential diagnosis rank generated by ChatGPT.

Principal Findings

This study provides insightful data on the performance of ChatGPT in diagnosing common diseases with atypical presentations. Our findings offer a nuanced view of the capacity of AI-driven differential diagnoses across varying levels of atypicality. In the analysis of the concordance rates between “GAI differential diagnoses” and “final diagnosis,” we observed a decrease in diagnostic accuracy as the degree of atypical presentation increased.

The performance of ChatGPT in C1 cases, which are the closest to typical presentations, was moderately successful, with a concordance rate of 17% for the top 1 diagnosis and 67% within the top 5. This suggests that when the disease presentation closely aligns with the typical characteristics known to the model, ChatGPT is relatively reliable at identifying a differential diagnosis list that coincides with the final diagnosis. However, the utility of ChatGPT appears to decrease as atypicality increases, as evidenced by the lower concordance rates in C2, and notably more so in C3 and C4, where the concordance rates for the top 1 diagnosis fell to 0%. Similar challenges were observed in another 2024 study [ 26 ], where the diagnostic accuracy of ChatGPT varied depending on the disease etiology, particularly in differentiating between central nervous system and non–central nervous system tumors.

It is particularly revealing that in the more atypical presentations of common diseases (C3 and C4), the AI struggled to provide a correct diagnosis, even within the top 5 differential diagnoses, with concordance rates of 25% and 17%, respectively. These categories highlight the current limitations of AI in medical diagnosis when faced with cases that deviate significantly from the established patterns within its training data [ 27 ].

By leveraging the comprehensive understanding and diagnostic capabilities of ChatGPT, this study aims to reevaluate the significance of patient history in AI-assisted medical diagnosis and contribute to optimizing diagnostic processes [ 28 ]. Our exploration of ChatGPT’s performance in processing atypical disease presentations not only advances our understanding of AI’s potential in medical diagnosis [ 23 ] but also underscores the importance of integrating advanced AI technologies with traditional diagnostic methodologies to enhance patient care and reduce diagnostic errors.

The contrast in performance between the C1 and C4 cases can be seen as indicative of the challenges AI systems currently face with complex clinical reasoning requiring pattern recognition. Atypical presentations can include uncommon symptoms, rare complications, or unexpected demographic characteristics, which may not be well represented in the data sets used to train the AI systems [ 29 ]. Furthermore, these findings can inform the development of future versions of AI medical diagnosis systems and guide training curricula to include a broader spectrum of atypical presentations.

This study underscores the importance of the continued refinement of AI medical diagnosis systems, as highlighted by the recent advances in AI technologies and their applications in medicine. Studies published in 2024 [ 30 - 32 ] provide evidence of the rapidly increasing capabilities of large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 in various medical domains, including oncology, where AI is expected to significantly impact precision medicine [ 30 ]. The convergence of text and image processing, as seen in multimodal AI models, suggests a qualitative leap in AI’s ability to process complex medical information, which is particularly relevant for our findings on AI-assisted medical diagnostics [ 30 ]. These developments reinforce the potential of AI tools like ChatGPT in bridging the knowledge gap between machine learning developers and practitioners, as well as their role in simplifying complex data analyses in medical research and practice [ 31 ]. However, as these systems evolve, it is crucial to remain aware of their limitations and the need for rigorous verification processes to mitigate the risk of errors, which can have significant implications in clinical settings [ 32 ]. This aligns with our observation of decreased diagnostic accuracy in atypical presentations and the necessity for cautious integration of AI into clinical practice. It also points to the potential benefits of combining AI with human expertise to compensate for current AI limitations and enhance diagnostic accuracy [ 33 ].

Our research suggests that while AI, particularly ChatGPT, shows promise as a supplementary tool for medical diagnosis, reliance on this technology should be balanced with expert clinical judgment, especially in complex and atypical cases [ 28 , 29 ]. The observed concordance rate of 67% for C1 cases indicates that even when not dealing with extremely atypical presentations, cases with potential pitfalls may result in AI medical diagnosis accuracy lower than the 80%‐90% estimated by existing studies [ 10 , 11 ]. This revelation highlights the need for cautious integration of AI in clinical settings, acknowledging that its diagnostic capabilities, while robust, may still fall short in certain scenarios [ 34 , 35 ].

Limitations

Despite the strengths of our research, the study has certain limitations that must be noted when contextualizing our findings. First, the external validity of the results may be limited, as our data set comprises only 25 clinical vignettes sourced from a special issue of the Journal of Generalist Medicine . While these vignettes were chosen for their relevance to the study’s hypothesis on atypical presentations of common diseases, the size of the data set and its origin as mock scenarios rather than real patient data may limit the generalizability of our findings. This sample size may not adequately capture the variability and complexities typically encountered in broader clinical practice and thus might not be sufficient to firmly establish statistical generalizations. This limitation is compounded by the exclusion of pediatric vignettes, which narrows the demographic range of our findings and potentially reduces their applicability across diverse age groups.

Second, ChatGPT’s current linguistic capabilities predominantly cater to English, presenting significant barriers to patient-provider interactions that may occur in other languages. This raises concerns about the potential for miscommunication and subsequent misdiagnosis in non-English medical consultations. This underscores the essential need for future AI models to exhibit a multilingual capacity that can grasp the subtleties inherent in various languages and dialects, as well as the cultural contexts within which they are used.

Finally, the diagnostic prioritization process of ChatGPT did not always align with clinical probabilities, potentially skewing the perceived effectiveness of the AI model. Additionally, it must be acknowledged that our research used ChatGPT based on GPT-4, which is not a publicly available model. Consequently, the result may not be directly generalizable to other LLMs, especially open-source models like Llama3 (Meta Platforms, Inc), which might have different underlying architectures and training data sets. Moreover, since our study relied on clinical vignettes that were mock scenarios, the potential for bias based on the cases is significant. The lack of real demographic diversity in these vignettes means that the findings may not accurately reflect social or regional nuances, such as ethnicity, prevalence of disease, or cultural practices, that could influence diagnostic outcomes. This limitation suggests a need for careful consideration when applying these AI tools across different geographic and demographic contexts to ensure the findings are appropriately adapted to local populations. This emphasizes the necessity for AI systems to be evaluated in diverse real-world settings to understand their effectiveness comprehensively and mitigate any bias. This distinction is important to consider when extrapolating our study’s findings to other AI systems. Future studies should not only refine AI’s diagnostic reasoning, but also explore the interpretability of its decision-making process, especially when errors occur. ChatGPT should be considered as a supplementary tool in medical diagnosis, rather than a standalone solution. This reinforces the necessity for combined expertise, where AI supports—but does not replace—human clinical judgment. Further research should expand these findings to a wider range of conditions, especially prevalent diseases with significant public health impacts, to thoroughly assess the practical utility and limitations of AI in medical diagnosis.

Conclusions

Our study contributes valuable evidence for the ongoing discourse on the role of AI in medical diagnosis. This study provides a foundation for future research to explore the extent to which AI can be trained to recognize increasingly complex and atypical presentations, which is critical for its successful integration into clinical practice.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the members of Igaku-Shoin, Tokyo, Japan, for permission to use the clinical vignettes. Igaku-Shoin did not participate in designing and conducting the study; data analysis and interpretation; preparation, review, or approval of the paper; or the decision to submit the paper for publication. The authors thank Dr Mai Hongo, Saka General Hospital, for providing a clinical vignette. The authors also thank Editage for the English language review.

Data Availability

The data sets generated and analyzed in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

In this study, generative artificial intelligence was used to create differential diagnoses for cases published in medical journals. However, it was not used in actual clinical practice. Similarly, no generative artificial intelligence was used in our manuscript writing.

Authors' Contributions

KS, T Watari, T Shimizu, Y Otsuka, M Tago, H Takahashi, YS, and YT designed the study. T Shimizu and Y Otsuka checked the atypical case categories. M Tago and H Takahashi confirmed the diagnoses. KS wrote the first draft and analyzed the research data. All authors created atypical common clinical vignettes and published them in the Journal of General Medicine . KS, T Shimizu, and H Takahashi critically revised the manuscript. All authors checked the final version of the manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

None declared.

Differential medical diagnosis list generated by ChatGPT.

Transcript of the conversation with ChatGPT and the answers to all the questions.

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Abbreviations

Edited by Blake Lesselroth; submitted 27.03.24; peer-reviewed by Aybars Kivrak, Lauren Passby, Soroosh Tayebi Arasteh; final revised version received 03.05.24; accepted 19.05.24; published 21.06.24.

© Kiyoshi Shikino, Taro Shimizu, Yuki Otsuka, Masaki Tago, Hiromizu Takahashi, Takashi Watari, Yosuke Sasaki, Gemmei Iizuka, Hiroki Tamura, Koichi Nakashima, Kotaro Kunitomo, Morika Suzuki, Sayaka Aoyama, Shintaro Kosaka, Teiko Kawahigashi, Tomohiro Matsumoto, Fumina Orihara, Toru Morikawa, Toshinori Nishizawa, Yoji Hoshina, Yu Yamamoto, Yuichiro Matsuo, Yuto Unoki, Hirofumi Kimura, Midori Tokushima, Satoshi Watanuki, Takuma Saito, Fumio Otsuka, Yasuharu Tokuda. Originally published in JMIR Medical Education (https://mededu.jmir.org), 21.6.2024.

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