Teachers and teacher education gaps in learning evaluation: evidence and questions

Abstract

The present article problematizes teacher education in learning evaluation based on evidence that licensure programs that provide technical and theoretical training on this topic are rare, which leads to the reproduction of models the teacher had been exposed to as a student and of the schools he starts to teach at without the necessary criticism, thus resulting in learning evaluation procedures, instruments and criteria with no validity or reliability, with a heavy impact on students’ educational trajectory and which do not allow using the results to organize the teaching and learning process. The work is founded on bibliographic research, observations of eight Class Councils at a school in the Municipal Education System of São Paulo and answers of 1,083 teachers to a questionnaire administered in a continuing education course on evaluation in the same education system. From the observations, we found that the teacher’s appreciation on whether the student should be retained or advance to the next grade are based on non-cognitive sources such as behavior and participation. In addition, the knowledge gaps demonstrated in the answers to the questionnaires show poor or, in many cases, no training related to evaluation, with mistakes that directly affect the evaluation practice, from the use of unsuitable procedures and instruments to the adoption of varying, imprecise criteria that compromise the whole evaluation process, to the detriment of students. The work shows we should urgently resume the debate on the evaluation practices carried out in schools, which is currently eclipsed by the centrality of external evaluations in the Brazilian educational arena.