This is another instance of my "obsessive" concern about distinctions.

The terms evaluation and assessment are often used synomonously, causing great difficulty. I find the following distinction essential.

An ASSESSMENT attempts to deterimine/discover details about the nature of some system or some process, WITHOUT (as much as possible) trying to judge or apply value to the system or process. Assessment is a process that yields data.

The data from an assessment may be used in EVALUATION, a term containing "value". Evaluation attempts to interpret and judge, often for purposes external to the system or process. For example, whether a project should be refunded, whether a medication should be made available to the public, or whether a person is qualified competent to perform critical functions as surgery or piloting jetliners.

The data from assessment might also be used as feedback to improve the performance of the system or process, and should not be used to judge the system or process AS A WHOLE.

The confusion of this distinction is most troublesome in education, where most assessments should be what educators called "formative evaluation", a guide for improvement. Instead, most teachers simply add scores from "formative assessments" (as they should be called) to create Summative Evaluations (a final measure of competency according to specified standards), which is both scientifically and logically invalid. For very good reason, students fear TESTS, and avoid useful formative assessments.

Here I refer primarily to an assessment of contemporary dialog and deliberation processes. What data do we gather and is it sufficient and useful? Is the data too subjective? What Objectives data can be obtained while not interferring with the process?

I do imply an evaluation, as to whether I believe these contemporary D&D processes are sufficient to achieve our objectives (those objectived that I deem important - for which there may be differences of opinion).

It makes a vital difference in designing measures to gather data whether the purpose is primarily for assessment (for improvement) or for (external) evaluation.

Another related distinction in interpretating assessment data, is whether "failure" to meet "objectives" is

(1) because the process was theoretically flawed, yet performed as prescribed or

(2) whether the process was theoretically valid, but was not performed as prescribed.

Often it is difficult to separate these "sources" of failure.

by Larry Victor 07/11/2004