Evaluating a curriculum project.

Technologists evaluate a curriculum project by assessing (a) the

merits of its goal, (b) the quality of its plans, (c) the extent to wich the plans can be carried out, and (d)
the value of the outcomes. Illustrative of such models is the CIPP (context, input, process, product)
model developed by Dan Stufflebeam and others. In the context phase of evaluation, the evaluator
focuses upon defining the environment, describing the desired and actual conditions and identifying the
problems (need assessment). Input refers to the selection of strategies to achieve the educational
objectives. Once as strategy has been selected, a process evaluation provides feedback to the
implementer about faults in the design and the implementation. Finally, a product evaluation is
undertaken to reveal the effects of the selected strategy on the curriculum.

In his analyrical review of evaluation, David Nevo summarized in question and answer form the
nature of consensual models and approaches:

1. What is evaluation? Educational evaluation is a systematic description of educational objects

(projects, programs, materials, curriculum, and institutions) and assessment of their worth.
2. What is the function of evaluation? Evaluation can serve four different functions: (a) formative
(for improvement), (b) summative (for selecting and accountability), (c) sociopolitical (to
motivate and gain public support), and (d) administrative (to exercise authority).
3. What kinds of information should be collected? Evaluators should collect information about the
goals of the object, its strategies and plans, the process of implementation, and the outcome
and impacts.
4. What criteria should be used to judge the merits of an object? In judging the worth of an
educational object, consider whether or not the object (a) responds to identified needs of
clients; (b) achieves national goals, ideals, or social values; (c) meets agreed upon standards; (d)
does better than alternative objects; and (e) achieves important atated goals.
5. What is the process of doing an evaluation? The process should include three activities: (a)
focusing on the problems, (b) collecting and analyzing empirical data, and (c) communicating
findings to evaluate audience.
6. Who should do evaluation? Individual or teams who have (a) competency in research nethods
and other data analysis techniques, (b) and understanding of the social context and the unique
substance of the evaluation object, (c) an ability to maintain correct human relations and
rapport with those involved, and (d) a conceptual framework to integrate the above mentioned
capabilities.
7. By what standards should an evaluation be judged? Evaluation should strike for a balance in
meeting standards of (a) utility (useful and practical), (b) accuracy (technically adequate), (c)
possibility (realistic and prudent), (d) property (conducted legally and athically.

Pluralistic Models
Evaluation models with the pluralistic concern of humanists and social reconstructionists have
had as yet a relatively limited impact. Pluralistic procedures are less frequently used than the
research and technological procedures applied by teachers in course improvement, by school
managers in rational decision making, by government evaluators in auditing new social programs in
the school, and by statewide evaluators in monitoring the curriculum for accountability purposes.
Pluralistic evaluation models tend to be used only when research and technological models are
less attractive for reasons of politics, cost, or practicality. These newer models are chiefly used with
curriculum that is out of the mainstream and is associated with aesthetic models are also
increasing in supplementary experimental designs.
Responsive evaluation. Robert E Stake was one of the first evaluators to propose the pluralist
argument that the evaluator should make known the criteria or standars that are being employed
and who holds them. As a pluralist, stake believes that sensitivity to the perceived needs of those
concerned with the evaluation is essential. Accordingly, he urges initial evaluations to discover
what clients and participants actually want from the program evaluation. These concerns should be
discovered prior to designing the evaluation project. Stake places less emphasis on precisely
specified objectives than do technologists, because he wishes to describe all intentions, even those
not expressed in terms of student learning. The key emphasis in his model is on description and
judgement for him, an evaluator should report the ways different people see the curriculum.
Hence, the evaluator’s principal activites include discovering what those concerned want to know,
making observations, and gathering multiple judgements about the observed antecedents,
transactions, and outcomes. A variety of person-outside experts, journalists, psychologists-as well
as teachers and students may participate in the conduct of the evaluation.
The connoisseurship model. Elliot W. Eisner has argued for an evaluation process that will
capture a richer slice of eduacational life than test scores do. One of his procedures is educational
criticism in wich an evaluator asks such questions as “what has happened during the school year in
a given school? How did students and teachers participate? What were the consequences? How
could the events be strengthened? What do such events enable children to learn?”