Michael Ayers describes how a team concluded that subjectivity remains at
the foundation of even apparently objective tests: "We noticed that
-value- lies at the center of evaluation."
A question came up for me about the meaning associated with the conclusion
that all evaluations contain some subjectivity: Was there a sense that
since all tests use subjective criteria, the conclusion thus invalidates
the notion of evaluation? (I found myself jumping up the ladder of
inference to this conclusion!) Or did the team think of it as simply new
data to be used to generate new, more useful methods of evaluation?
>"So doesn't any measure of quality depend on someone's value scheme? And
doesn't the 'ladder of inference' remind us that the value scheme affects
what we observe?"
In my experience, yes-- values are always part of evaluation schemes.
Argyris' Ladder of Inference would seem to be a very useful tool for
identifying the implicit values and assumptions behind evaluations,
recognizing the subjectivity, and helping to make evaluations more
effective assessment and developmental tools in themselves.
-- Diane Weston DMWeston@aol.com