Review of evaluation tools for postgraduate programs

Recently, the rapid development of sciences and the tendency of training new executives have contributed to the improvement of postgraduate studies. As in every educational process, postgraduate programs should be continuously evaluated in order to ensure the quality and effectiveness of provided teaching. This has led educational institutions to the adoption of a variety of teaching approaches that combine proved traditional practices with innovative teaching methods. Continuous evaluation of postgraduate modules contributes to an improvement of module’s quality and to a fruitful collaboration between postgraduate students and educational staff. The aim of this paper is to present the tools that address course evaluation; emphasis is placed on postgraduate programs. These methods of evaluation could be distinguished in formative and summative. In order to choose the most appropriate tool, a number of additional factors are considered. These include exams schedule, individuality of student population, and tool reliability and validity. Each potential course evaluator has a choice of tools with advantages and disadvantages. Although the most valid and reliable choice is desired, this would result from a comprehensive evaluation of the utility of multiple methods and the evaluator’s level of knowledge and ability to make sense of any findings.

Category: Volume 47, N 4
Hits: 731 Hits
Created Date: 15-12-2008
Authors: Nektaria Scandalaki , Victoria Vivilaki , Christos Lionis