Critical Evaluation Toolkit

What will you assess?

Analysis and critical evaluation are more difficult to assess in students' work than, say, teamwork or oral communication. They are more abstract in nature, with individual values often clouding thinking.

Both skills involve students in thinking reflectively, constructing and deconstructing arguments or ideas and making judgements based on evidence of some kind. It is this part of the learning process that can be assessed - usually in written form, but also in oral presentations or interviews.

What you are looking for, and making a judgement about, is not necessarily the conclusion reached by the student, but evidence in the students' assignment that they:

• have formulated a proposition based on valid premises;
• have gathered and presented supporting evidence to argue their case;
• have challenged underlying assumptions held by others; and
• have reflected on their conclusions and made their own judgement about their value.

Reflective journals that track developments in the students' thinking are useful, either as non-assessable or assessable components of the course.

Useful resources

Keeping a Reflective Journal.
Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 23 October, 2006)
http://www.clt.uts.edu.au/Scholarship/Reflective.journal.htm