Assessment and Evaluation Process in Nursing; A Brief Review of all Related Concepts in Nursing Education

Abstract

Assessment and evaluation are the two terms that used interchangeably by most of the teachers and so by the nursing educators. There is a well demarcated difference between two. Assessment is process of data collection, collection of evidences and making judgments related to the outcomes. It is narrower than evaluation. In classroom setting a tutor observes his or her student, his teaching learning skills, collects feedback on their learning, improve his/ her teaching learning strategies to facilitate them for maximum learning. Assessment is a part of teaching learning process. Here we can go for assessment of learning, for learning and as learning. In comparison to this evaluation is a systematic process in which we as nurse educators collect and analyze data so that we can be able to determine whether objectives of teaching learning process has been achieved or not, if achieved then to what extent or degree they have been achieved. Thus the main focus of evaluation is to judge a student nurse for the quality or attribute or worth he/she actually has. Thus the main aim of assessment is to increase quality of a student whereas evaluation is all about judging that quality which he has acquired where being in the profession. Thus we may also say that assessment is concerned with process, while evaluation focuses on outcome.