Assessment

“ No doubt, a great deal is to done by the careful selection of examiners, and by the copious introduction of practical work, to remove the evils inseparable from examination; but, under the best of circumstances, I believe that examination will remain but an imperfect test of knowledge, and a still more imperfect test of capacity, while it tells next to nothing about a man's power as an investigator. ”

“ It appears, then, that we need experience to inform us, in what degree, and in what cases, or sorts of cases, experience is to be relied on. Experience must be consulted in order to learn from it under what circumstances arguments from it will be valid. We have no ulterior test to which we subject experience in general; but we make experience its own test. Experience testifies, that among the uniformities which it exhibits or seems to exhibit, some are more to be relied on than others ”

“ The generalization test presents for interpretation situations which are closely paralleled in the everyday social experience of human beings. It tests the subject’s ability to understand motives underlying acts or attitudes. ”

“ Central in interest and promise stands the psychological test. In so far as psychology has laid bare the fundamental qualities upon which achievement depends, [Pg xiv] its application has developed a series of tests to determine how the individual compares with the others or with the average in respect to this, that, and the other constituent quality. Professor Hollingworth presents the results of such analysis, both in relation to the variety of human traits and in the grading of individuals by reference to the measure of the quality which each possesses. ”

“ Thus, then, a judgment, an opinion, if it means anything concrete, is always an appeal to more or less accessible human experience--and is not, as I have been asserting, an appeal to an overarching higher insight. When you make any significant assertion, you appeal to whatever concrete human observations, experiments, or other findings of data, actual or possible, can furnish the test that the opinion calls for. ”

“ Examinations, examinations by teachers who understand this very fine art, in which the student is obliged to restate, apply, and use the principles of his subject, are of the utmost value in keeping the mind active and not simply receptive. They are just as good and as vitally necessary as examination papers which merely demand definitions and lists and bald facts are bad. ”

“ It is in this way that a formal examination reacts upon and intensifies the sinister tendencies of which it is at once a product and a symptom. The examination system is, as I have said, the keystone of the arch of Western education, crowning and completing the whole structure, and at the same time holding it together, and preventing it from falling, as it deserves to fall, into a ruinous heap. ”

“ Examination—thorough, searching examination—is an indispensable accompaniment of teaching; but I am almost inclined to commit myself to the very heterodox proposition that it is a necessary evil. I am a very old examiner, having, for some twenty years past, been occupied with examinations on a considerable scale, of all sorts and conditions of men, and women too—from the boys and girls of elementary schools, to the candidates for honors and fellowships in the universities. ”

“ The access to progressive examinations, of such a character as to test and attest advanced attainments, would, there is every reason to believe, at once begin to work in lengthening the period of study. ”

“ The pupil's responsibility for making out a reasonable case
II. The distinctively rational phase of reflective inquiry consists, as we have already seen, in the elaboration of an idea, or working hypothesis, through conjoint comparison and contrast, terminating in definition or formulation. (i) So far as the recitation is concerned, the primary requirement is that the student be held responsible for working out mentally every suggested principle so as to show what he means by it, how it bears upon the facts at hand, and how the facts bear upon it. ”

“ Usually the examination is regarded as a test to determine the accuracy and extent of the student's information, which form may be called a question-and-answer examination or quiz. A more desirable form of examination is one which requires the student to survey his information on a particular topic, and to summarize the same or to state his own conclusions concerning either the relative importance of the different items or his interpretation of the meaning or application of the facts. ”

“ Whenever a class is given a series of review questions for the purpose of requiring a general review of a whole subject, the result of the exercise is to fix in the student’s mind certain larger elements of the study and to establish certain broad habits of selection. Written examinations may be, from this point of view, devices of training, not merely tests of results. The examination method as a training method has, accordingly, an important place. ”

“ This is the class of tests that are designed to measure the degree in which an individual possesses such qualities as moral sense, form perception, the power to reason from cause to effect, poetic discrimination, ability to understand complicated instructions, judgment, sense of the right relationship of things and ideas. ”

“ A more important test is a thesis studied from original sources, and the most important is good-conduct marks in a certain arbitrary number of set lecture courses. The policeman's examination is supreme. ”

“ For evidence in favour of this view we must take a rapid survey of the whole domain of human science, and test the chief departments of it to see how far they contain, on the one hand, objective knowledge and facts, and on the other, subjective knowledge and hypotheses. ”

“ Since an examination is, in effect, a form of psychological test, it is natural that psychologists should have attempted to introduce some of the technique of psychological testing into the work of examining students, in the interest of economy of the student's time as well as that of the examiner. The teacher prepares blanks which the student can quickly fill out if he knows the subject, not otherwise. ”

“ Each particular case must of course be independently considered, but the general conclusion we have reached is that in most instances it is wise to put one's conclusions as soon as possible to the rigid test of practical use. ”

“ If there existed such a thing as a really national education or a trustworthy system of general examination, education might be tested directly. In the absence of these, the nature of a person's occupation is some test. ”

“ Whilst the problem of knowledge has special reference to the intellect, the problem of evaluation grows out of the inquiry into the validity of judgments pertaining to human conduct and social institution—particularly those that rest on the processes of will and emotion. ”

“ Use of examinations.Having lived through the pre-examination period, and seen the great evils which resulted from there being no test, I cannot join in the popular condemnation. There is no unmixed good, and many mistakes, which we learn to avoid later, are made when a system is new. ”

“ Every question, every controversy, theory, view, or supposition which arises, he subjects to the same test. It is another merit of the book that every question is submitted to common-sense argumentation. ”

“ The ordinary and standardized school and university examinations, 28civil-service examinations, etc., which have long been the accepted test of the individual’s ability, do not, and do not purport to, measure anything more than this last item, that of acquired knowledge. ”

“ Driver, 5 Ch. Div. 458, 476. Such a test seems to give a synonym, rather than a definition; another name for the conclusion, rather than a statement of the premises from which the conclusion is to be drawn. ”

“ But when information is regarded as the equivalent of knowledge, the testing of the teacher's work becomes a simple matter, for it is quite easy to frame an examination which will ascertain, with some approach to accuracy, the amount of information that is floating on the surface of the child's mind ”

“ In like manner as the field of investigation is somewhat shifted in the second petition, so the manner of investigation is correspondingly different. 'Search' is the divine scrutiny of the inner man by the eye; 'test' is the trial as metals are tried and proved by the fiery furnace. ”

“ In all such studies the student should be invited to look to the vestiges left automatically by the process itself for the answer, and he should learn to accept the teachings of evidence precisely as it presents itself. ”

“ All relevant material must be marshaled and sorted and forthrightly examined. We must not only be precise as to the standards of judgment that we are utilizing, but exacting in examining the relevant material in light of those standards. ”

“ Wherever examinations are introduced—and by examinations I understand any demand for answers to questions—there appears only a new and useless object, demanding special labor, special qualities, and this object is called preparation for examinations or lessons. The pupil in the gymnasium learns history or mathematics, and in addition something important—the art of answering examination questions. ”

“ If changes are brought about in the children [253] who are being educated, then there must be the possibility of measurement. These changes may take place in habit, in knowledge, in methods of work, in interests and ideals, and in power of appreciation. Probably no one would question the possibility of measuring the change which takes place in the formation of habits. We have quite commonly been willing to measure growth in knowledge by tests which demand that students not only remember facts, but that they show some ability to apply them. ”

“ Necessarily men carry with them into sociological inquiries, the modes of observation and reasoning which they have been accustomed to in other inquiries—those of them, at least, who make any inquiries worthy to be so called. ”

“ It is a knowledge of things themselves as they are, a knowledge of the signs and tendencies of the times, a profound and accurate knowledge of the character and wants of the age. And all this requires time, long and laborious study, close, honest and independent investigation—an investigation carried on irrespective of the fear, or favor, or dogmas of men. ”

“ Those who have made some advance in the survey of the entire system ought to fix in their minds under the principal headings an elementary outline of the whole treatment of the subject. For a comprehensive view is often required, the details but seldom. ”

“ We can be more sure of the accuracy of our results in comparing two groups of children of a thousand each, than we could in the attempt to measure accurately a single individual with regard to ability in school subjects. ”

“ Sully says, in speaking of the judgment, 4 — "This process of judging illustrates the two fundamental elements in thought activity, viz., analysis and synthesis." "To judge is clearly to discern and to mark off as a special object of thought some connecting relation." "To begin with, before we can judge we must have the requisite materials for forming a judgment." "In the second place, to judge is to carry out a process of reflection on given material." "In addition to clearness and accuracy, our judgments may have other perfections. ”

“ If any important conclusions are to be reached, the concrete, and not the abstract, must be the object of our investigation, and this is what these Institutes have endeavoured to keep constantly in view. ”

“ Now by what tests does the psychologist decide whether the state of mind he is studying is a bit of knowledge, or only a subjective fact not referring to anything outside itself? He uses the tests we all practically use. If the state of mind resembles his own idea of a certain reality ”

“ Sooner or later most men serve on juries; and all students have to read historical and economical arguments. We shall therefore give some space in Chapter III to considering the principles of reasoning by which we arrive at and test conclusions as to the existence of facts, and the truth of assertions about them. ”

“ It isn't necessary, even if it were probable, for you to have these grand-stand tests you read about in books; if you can stand the every-day trial of seeing your friends get ahead of you, then you will pass the examination. ”

“ But while certain gross dimensions of individual capacity may be roughly estimated from the results of a written or an oral examination based entirely upon the subject’s stored-up knowledge, it is a matter of common knowledge, and almost every reader will be able to furnish examples out of his own experience, that such tests are frequently totally misleading. ”

“ In order to use the tests intelligently it is necessary to acquaint one’s self thoroughly with the purpose of each test, its correct procedure, and the psychological interpretation of different types of response. ”

“ In dealing with social difficulties, the value of a cultivated judgment, able to unravel entangled evidence, and to give due weight to a great variety of conflicting considerations, would seem to be obvious enough. ”