Co-evaluation: What It Is, Characteristics, Advantages And Disadvantages
Evaluation is a necessary process in any educational process. Knowing to what degree students have acquired the knowledge presented in class is essential to know how efficient learning is being.
However, the person who can evaluate it does not always have to be the teacher. Students can be participants in this process, both by self-evaluating, that is, evaluating their own work, and by co-evaluating, evaluating what their classmates have done.
Next we will focus on the co-evaluation its main characteristics, how it should be applied, advantages, difficulties and an example.
Co-evaluation consists, fundamentally, of that the evaluation of the students’ work is carried out by the students themselves, observing, analyzing and evaluating the work of their classmates It is a process carried out among peers, based on predefined criteria, normally suggested by the teacher, which will serve to evaluate the performance and quality of the classmates, in order to understand if they have acquired the learning that is expected of them.
All students fulfill two roles simultaneously. On the one hand there is being evaluated with their own work, in which they have to demonstrate that they have acquired the theoretical knowledge presented in class; and on the other hand there is the role of evaluators, applying the practical knowledge taught in the correction session, knowing how to use a swap or rubric and trying to put aside the feelings they may have towards the student they evaluate in order to make a correction. as objective as possible.
Features of this method to evaluate
There are several characteristics that we can highlight about the co-evaluation; they are briefly explained here.
1. Used in collaborative work
Co-evaluation is a tool that It is usually used in collaborative work, that is, work done in groups One or all of the members of the group value the work of the others, how they have helped in carrying out the work, whether they have demonstrated that they possess the knowledge expected of them, whether there has been any problem…
Co-assessment can also be used in individual assignments. Here The situation is similar to the role that the teacher plays when analyzing the work of his students, except that each student only corrects the work of a classmate not of all.
3. Student acts as evaluated and evaluator
Especially in individual assignments, the student acts as both evaluated and evaluator simultaneously. He is evaluated insofar as he has also done work and another classmate is evaluating it, and he is an evaluator because he is evaluating the work of another student.
Knowing this, the student tends to make constructive criticism towards his classmate, since he understands that in the same way that he would not like to be told the things he has done wrong in bad ways, he should not say them that way either. Feedback that is beneficial to both parties is encouraged.
4. Control of emotions
This tool helps better understand how a correction should be made, in addition to identifying your own and others’ errors that allow you to be more aware of the extent to which you master the content explained in class.
However, in addition to this, the emotional capacities of the students are enhanced, since, when faced with a task that involves high responsibility, the student is motivated and controls their emotionality, trying to be as objective as possible and avoiding any bias towards evaluator may cause you to give an inappropriate correction.
5. Time savings
Having the students themselves correct the work of their classmates represents a great saving of time for the teacher, since You do not have to correct all the work of the 20 to 30 students who make up the class
Aspects to consider
Co-evaluation is a useful tool but it is not always possible to apply it. It is not recommended to apply it at the beginning of the school year or when starting a class topic, especially because the students do not have any knowledge that can be evaluated and they are expected to neither do the work well nor know what they have to correct. For it to work, first the topic to be evaluated must have been explained, then the teacher must explain to the student that they will be evaluated among peers and, finally, give them guidelines on how to do it.
Students should be insisted that it is not simply that they see the mistakes that their classmates may have made, but that they think about the fact that the work they themselves do may fall into the hands of a more or less strict classmate. Everyone must be as objective as possible, but they must also do their work as best as possible since the person who evaluates is not the teacher, but rather someone who does not know to what extent the way they have responded to an exercise may be considered an error or inappropriate.
During the explanation that they are going to evaluate the work of others, the teacher must raise awareness among students so that when giving feedback they avoid being unpleasant or making inappropriate comments It is about learning by testing one’s own knowledge and identifying to what extent others master it or not, it should not become a personal attack or a strategy to ruin the quarter for someone we dislike. Constructive comments should be made.
Advantages
Although some of the advantages of applying co-evaluation have been suggested in the characteristics section, Below we will see the main ones that this tool involves
Disadvantages
Although co-evaluation is a very useful tool, it also has its disadvantages. The reason why most teachers prefer to use traditional assessment, that is, marking all the work themselves, is that it is a much more standardized process. Besides, it is difficult to trust that students will correct objectively and appropriately since they do not always have the necessary knowledge or experience, in addition to the fact that there can always be interpersonal conflicts in the classroom.
Instruments for co-evaluation
Normally, when a co-evaluation exercise is introduced in class, the teacher explains how the work of other classmates should be evaluated and distribute some document that allows standardizing the correction This document can be a rubric or an estimation scale, in which it is noted whether the partner’s work meets different criteria. In them there are a series of statements accompanied by levels or values and, if met, different scores are given to the work that has been received.
Usually, in the heading of the estimation scale the topic or content to be evaluated is indicated and, next to it, the name of the evaluated student is placed in a box. In the first column, the aspects to be evaluated are written in the form of statements (e.g., “His work lacks spelling mistakes”) and in the following columns the achievement levels are integrated (e.g., Always- sometimes-never).
Whatever the topic or aspect that is being evaluated, it is common that at the end of the rubric or the estimated scale there is a a box that serves as a section for suggestions, aspects to improve or observations There, if the evaluator considers it so, comments will be written as feedback to the student so that they think about those mistakes that they may have made and learn from them.
Conclusion
Co-evaluation is a very useful tool in the educational field. Among its main advantages is that it allows students to participate in the learning process, being aware of what knowledge is expected of them and knowing how to identify which ones they have acquired. It is also a tool that allows us to break with the traditional teacher-student evaluation, saving time for the teacher and giving practical experience to their students.
As long as the teacher has given guidelines on how to do it, has made sure that the content to be evaluated has been previously taught and trusts that his students will evaluate their classmates honestly and fairly, it becomes a truly useful and useful tool. profitable On the other hand, if the students are not committed or are not mature enough to distinguish between the personal and the academic, it becomes wasted time.
