The effect of descriptive evaluation of elementary school third grade subjects on academic achievement of students

Abstract

The goal of this research was the effect of descriptive evaluation of elementary school third grade subjects on academic achievement of students and its comparison with traditional evaluation. The statistical population of the research included all female third grade students of elementary schools in ZarrinShahr in academic year of 2012-2013 who were a total number of 742 students as well as the elementary school third grade teachers who were a number of 34 teachers. Among them a number of 147 students and 28 teachers were selected via cluster sampling. Research methodology in this study was of survey-descriptive type. The research tools were checklists and a questionnaire of opinion toll, made by the researcher. To assess the validity of the tools used, the face validity and content validity were used and the validity of the questionnaire was estimated as a=0.93. Chi square test was used to analyze the research questions. The results of the research showed that using different methods of descriptive evaluation has been effective in improving the students’ performances in such subjects as the Holy Quran, social sciences, arts, science & Persian, while it has not been effective in improving their performances in such subjects as heavenly gifts (the Holy Quran for elementary students) and mathematics. Finally, the results of opinion toll showed that the teachers found descriptive evaluation more suitable than traditional evaluation in evaluating all the third grade subjects of elementary school.

Keywords: Evaluation, Descriptive evaluation, Traditional evaluation, Students’ performances.