The Evaluation Explosion. A Proposal: the Criteria of "Non Prevalence"

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA E RICERCA SOCIALE
Author/s Roberto Cipriani
Publishing Year 2013 Issue 2013/100 Language Italian
Pages 6 P. 11-16 File size 584 KB
DOI 10.3280/SR2013-100002
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We could say that an explosion of evaluation has taken place in the sociological panorama (and not only). This has a double meaning: in the sense of a new, innovative, almost revolutionary, phenomenon, but also to indicate that the almost contemporary activation and processing of evaluation has put the university (and school) system in crisis, highlighting faults, delays, incompetence, little familiarity with technology and communication practices, internal and external contradictions, evident flaws, unavailability to communicative action («habermasian » and not), the ascendance of technocracy, dissimulated corporativism, masked self-reference, presumption of no judgments, muddled structures, lack of observance of implementation times, and especially self-determined deadlines. The panorama is bleak, but something has been changing. It is advisable to avoid the tendency to use only qualitative or quantitative data. It is most important to always keep present the criteria of «non prevalence», meaning giving attention to every possible type of information, indicators or factors, which accompany and characterize the context and content of a study. The risk is otherwise that a scarcely relevant detail can become the only (or almost only) referential parameter, without the considering its significance in the context.

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Roberto Cipriani, È scoppiata la valutazione. Una proposta: il criterio della «non prevalenza» in "SOCIOLOGIA E RICERCA SOCIALE " 100/2013, pp 11-16, DOI: 10.3280/SR2013-100002