Critical knots in the learning assessment process in the early childhood education pedagogy. Challenges and opportunities for initial teacher training

Abstract

To describe from the students perspective, the evaluation practices used by professors of the program Pedagogy of Early Child Education with specialty in Special Needs Education. This is done in the context of a formative curriculum based in the learning outcomes and demonstration of proficiencies. The research addresses from a qualitative perspective what is applied to focus groups and interviews semi structured to students of the program from different cohortes. The critical centres of learning evaluation are observed in the administrative actions, in the dichotomy of evaluation practices and in the coherence evaluation with the type of content. In general, the evaluations practices are characterized by its contribution to the educational model in the university. However, among the findings of this study one can identify some weaknesses, as in the scarcity presence of feedback, its definition as a vertical process centred in heteroevaluation; add to this the ignorance of the nature of the content that it’s evaluated, with a clear preference for the more traditional ways of evaluation.