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Curriculum evaluation

University of British Columbia

There are two parts to this paper. The first is an account of what must be involved in evaluating something from the point of view of a curriculum. "Curriculum evaluation", in this sense of the term, refers to a kind of instrumental evaluation. After examining some of the logical features of various sorts of instrumental evaluation, I argue that evaluating something from the point of view of a curriculum must involve determining whether the thing being evaluated serves well as a programme of activities to the end that someone learn something that is worth learning. The second part of this paper is an attempt to clarify and criticize the accounts of curriculum evaluation given by Robert Stake and Michael Scriven. Stake would have the evaluator evaluate curricula from the point of view of local customs. Scriven, on the other hand, would have him evaluate curricula, on one account, from the point of view of a curriculum and, on a second, from the economic point of view and from the point of view of either educational instruments or simply instruments. Because it is reasonable to suppose that the evaluator should do an on-the-whole evaluation of curricula, both Stake's and Scriven's accounts are criticized for being incomplete.

Text

2010-02-12

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/20152

Education

University of British Columbia

Graduate