Evaluation of Continual Quality Improvement program of a school

Social programs can be evaluated by many ways. Because one of the basic ideas of continual quality improvement is to help people to help themselves, empowerment evaluation is worth thinking. According to Patton (1997, 101) “empowerment evaluation is most appropriate where the goals of the program include helping participants become more self-sufficient and personally effective.” In empowerment evaluation evaluator may observe evidence for abilities: 1) to identify and express real needs, 2) to establish objectives, 3) plan action to achieve them, 4) identify and get resources, 5) make rational choices, 6) take appropriate steps to achieve objectives, 7) evaluate short and long term results and 8) persist in pursuit of those objectives.

Any social program ought to be evaluated both in relation to its effectiveness and efficiency. According to Love (1991, 96) this basic conceptual distinction was introduced by Barnard (1938).

It is important to evaluate open-mindedly any continual quality improvement program, any environmental education program, any school improvement program. It is always an evaluation study, a case study and if its results are used for continual quality improvement, this kind of study would be also action research. There are plenty of good English literature on these subjects, e.g. Altrichter, Posch and Somekh (1993), Patton (1997) and Yin (1994).
 

Practical suggestions:

Try creatively to self-evaluate your own work, your own projects, your own organization, your own community action for sustainable development. Ask your students to self-evaluate their learning work, cooperative learning projects, your organization and your own community action for sustainable development.
 

Evaluation or assessment of pupil learning, instruction and curriculum

If we think very complexity of environmental problems and possibilities of solving or alleviating them, then improved concept maps and Vee heuristics and project reports would be worth using in evaluation. Also portfolios, observations and discussions, interviews with pupils and teachers would be helpful.

Teacher can gather information for evaluation by observing, interviews, testing, essays, reports, portfolios, concept mapping, Vee heuristics and analysis of reasoning and rhetorics and argumentation.

There are many kinds of teacher-made tests to get knowledge about learning of pupils: essays, short-answer questions, multiple-choice items, true-false items, matching items etc. (e.g. Åhlberg 1992, Gage & Berliner 1988, McCormick & Pressley 1997). All may be useful in specific situations.

There are many ways to construct knowledge about instruction and teaching as interaction, e.g. informal or systematic observation (e.g. Åhlberg 1992, Gage & Berliner 1988). Participative observation is probably one of the best ways. The qualitative and/or quantitative descriptions for its own sake are not very useful. If descriptions are connected to action research it would be more useful for promoting sustainability, good environment and good life.

There are many ways to evaluate planned, implemented and experienced curriculum. Curriculum materials can be assessed as any texts by using detailed expert judgements. Concept mapping and Vee heuristics are probably useful (e.g. Åhlberg 1991 and 1992).
 

Practical suggestions:

In the beginning of each new study project make learners construct first those parts of a Vee heuristic, which can be done before the project proper (points from 1st to 6th). After implementation of the plan expressed in the Vee heuristic the points from 7th to 10th can be answered. By looking the main features of the project on a A4 sheet, pupils and teachers as cooperative learners are able to metalearn about their own learning. By this way they probably manage better their learning, thinking, feeling and acting for sustainability, good environment and good life.

By constructing concept maps in the beginning and in the end of the learning project and comparing those two concept maps, both pupils and teachers as learners can again metalearn and promote their possibilities for better actions for sustainability, good environment and good life.

Using many different tools to gather data is often good in research to increase validity and reliability of research results. But education for sustainability, good environment and good life, is a practical task, where knowledge about learning outcomes ought to be gathered, if only possible, so that the evaluation procedure actually enhances valued learning. At least improved concept mapping and Vee heuristic essays, reports and portfolios are those kinds of evaluation tools.