This master’s thesis includes theoretical findings on evaluation in general and descriptive evaluation in particular. It starts with a brief historical overview of descriptive evaluation, presenting both points of view – the one that favors descriptive evaluation and the one that critically assess it. Students in the 1st and 2nd grade are assessed with a descriptive evaluation which presents a difficulty for the parents, since they are not familiar with them, cannot understand them in relation to the set goals or knowledge standards and therefore often ask for numerical evaluations.
Based on the presented theoretical findings, I used the qualitative method, a paper-based questionnaire in the empirical part of the thesis. It was intended for the parents of students who in the 2015/16 academic year finished 1st grade of primary school and received their report card. I checked if the descriptive grades for the Slovene language subject were written in a way that the parents could understand, if the parents had experience with older children and could therefore understand them better and their in this regard.
Based on the analysis of 160 questionnaires, I can summarize that the parents believe they understand descriptive evaluations. However, they do not know how to rank their children on a scale to be compared with their peers, which they point out as a disadvantage. As an improvement they propose the return to numerical evaluation or a combination of numerical and descriptive evaluations. The parents believe that they are most likely to understand the evaluation which is most informative for them, i.e. the numerical evaluation. With my study I have shown that there is an interconnection between the type of evaluation the parents would choose for their child for Slovene language and the understanding and guiding toward progress. Interim descriptive evaluations are important, as they have a statistically significant influence for the understanding of final descriptive evaluations for Slovene, whereas for continuous descriptions of the student's knowledge, e.g. noted in notebooks, exercise books and similar, this cannot be said. Similarly, the parents' previous experience with descriptive evaluations did not prove to be a variable which would demonstrate statistical connectivity.
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