It is a generally accepted fact in my corner of science that the act of observation and evaluation changes the outcomes. It can be a scary thought for many because it means that you can never “really” know what’s happening. We try to isolate and minimize variables. We observe and evaluate from ever increasing distances to minimize the impact on the results. The problem then becomes that the results of our observations and evaluations become less and less useful because the conditions of the evaluation are totally synthetic. Nothing happens in a vacuum. (Actually a great deal happens in a vacuum, but that’s a different topic). We go to all these lengths and then in the end there is occasionally a realization that it doesn’t matter. It’s the relationships and the interactions that matter, not the isolated quanta (or objectives).
No matter how learning is evaluated (scantron tests, projects, dissertations, or crystal balls), the act of evaluation itself will affect what is learned and how it is learned. That I think we can all agree on. As a teacher it can be a scary thought because it means that you can never “really” know what your student “knows”. But do you need to know? Perhaps it is enough to know that we affect them.
Evaluation should always have a clear reason, and a clear conscious.
What do you think?
The New Learning Paradigm 