PURPOSE OF EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION

In the realm of education evaluation has to serve a number of functions. Following are some of the important among them:

1.     Assessment Function: Developmental education aims at maximizing the output in the form of total and transferable development of the learner.  Evaluation will have ultimately to assess the final performance of the learner, the value judgement being made in terms of the quantity and quality of the total attainment with respect to a specific curriculum area.

2.     Diagnosis Function: Development is dynamic as it is a progressive movement towards the desired goal. The goal can be reached only if the progress is checked and monitored at every stage so that immediate goals are appropriately realized which in turn will ensure the realization of the final goal.  This verification of the progress is attempted by immediate feedback leading to knowledge of results and is intended to identify or detect a variety of factors. On the basis of this detection, difficulties can be spot out and remedial measures can be taken to overcome these difficulties.

3.     Placement Function: Evaluation may conduct to determine whether the student can be promoted to a further stage, based on the realization o of the expected level.  This function of the final evaluation is called the placement function.

4.     Prediction Function: Another important function of evaluation is to predict whether the student is capable to undertake the anticipated objective or not.  If a student succeeds in the evaluation it can be predict that he will be a successful candidate. On the other hand, if a student is found to be too poor, it can be predict that he will be a failure.