The evaluation criteria are applied in the educational field.
In order to know the meaning of the term evaluation criteria , it is necessary, first of all, to discover the etymological origin of the two main words that give it shape:
-Criteria, first of all, derives from Greek. Specifically, it emanates from “kriterion”, which can be translated as “norm that is established to know the truth” and which is the result of the sum of two components: the verb “krinein”, which is synonymous with “decide”, and the suffix “-io”, used to indicate “result”.
-Evaluation, secondly, has its origin in Latin. It means “establishment of the price of something” and is the result of the sum of several components: the prefix “ex”, which means “out”; the verb “valere”, which can be translated as “be strong”; and the suffix “-cion”, which indicates “action and effect”.
A criterion is a guideline, a norm or a judgment. An evaluation , on the other hand, is an exam or a qualification process (which consists of assigning a value according to qualities).
What are evaluation criteria
The idea of evaluation criteria is used in the field of education to name the frame of reference taken by teachers when evaluating the academic performance of their students. These criteria refer to the knowledge that students must acquire and what they have to learn to do with said knowledge.
The evaluation criteria, therefore, focus on theory and practice . Each student must demonstrate in the evaluations that they have understood the contents and that they are able to apply them. Mastery of these two dimensions implies the acquisition of skills by the individual.
Depending on the evaluation criteria, a student passes or fails an exam.
An example
Let's take the case of the Language subject. The evaluation criteria used by teachers of a given course aim at students demonstrating their ability to understand a text, summarize it and describe it in their own words.
Thus, when taking an exam, teachers offer a fifty-line journalistic note to children and ask them to summarize it in ten lines. They also tell them that they must describe the same event narrated by the journalist, but with different words. Once the students hand in the exams, the teachers will apply the evaluation criteria to determine, according to what is evidenced, whether each child achieved the necessary merits to pass or not.
How evaluation criteria are determined
In addition to everything stated above, we cannot ignore another series of relevant aspects about the evaluation criteria:
-When setting them, the skills that are going to be developed must be taken into consideration.
-It is essential that they revolve around the most relevant learning, which is considered essential for the student to advance in the subject they cover.
-It is also necessary to concentrate on dimensions, which are the aspects that shape the object of evaluation, the subdimensions, which are different parts of the dimensions, and the attributes. These are the items that shape the different subdimensions.