Developing evaluative judgement: enabling students to make decisions about the quality of work

TLDR

Evaluative judgement is the ability to assess the quality of one's own and others' work. The authors argue that cultivating students’ evaluative judgement should be a higher‑education goal to improve their work and meet future learning needs. They trace the term’s origins, define it concisely, and recommend refining self‑assessment, peer assessment, feedback, rubrics, and exemplar use to foster evaluative judgement. Viewing pedagogical practices through the lens of evaluative judgement can generate effective methods for developing learners’ essential skills inside and beyond higher education.

Abstract

Evaluative judgement is the capability to make decisions about the quality of work of oneself and others. In this paper, we propose that developing students’ evaluative judgement should be a goal of higher education, to enable students to improve their work and to meet their future learning needs: a necessary capability of graduates. We explore evaluative judgement within a discourse of pedagogy rather than primarily within an assessment discourse, as a way of encompassing and integrating a range of pedagogical practices. We trace the origins and development of the term ‘evaluative judgement’ to form a concise definition then recommend refinements to existing higher education practices of self-assessment, peer assessment, feedback, rubrics, and use of exemplars to contribute to the development of evaluative judgement. Considering pedagogical practices in light of evaluative judgement may lead to fruitful methods of engendering the skills learners require both within and beyond higher education settings.