L’evaluation en classe: Mesure ou dialogue?

Proposals by psychologists to improve educational measurement lead to the construction of tests or of scales of development. For the assessment of pupils’ productions in the classroom, teachers seem to have other needs. Precise measurement is not required; what is wanted instead is qualitative information of a diagnostic nature, suggesting possible ways for doing remedial work. Information concerning one pupil rarely permits locating his position on a continuous scale of development, since learning does not proceed linearly. Assessment in the classroom should rather be considered as a communication process between teacher and pupils, leading after an unpredictable number of interactions, to a state of mastery of the educational objective. As experimental social psychology recently demonstrated, this mastery is not to be conceived as a personal characteristic of the pupil, but as the result of his adaptation to his social situation. Consequently, generalizing on the basis of this assessment is hazardous.