Cultural Vehicles in Education

Grundtvig-CVE Workshops

Final test of participants, results of knowledge

Die Wille gGmbH

After the project's evaluator, Mr Alexander Schejbal forwarded a final evaluation questionnaire with multiple choice answers to Die Wille gGmbH, the participants were given this questionnaire after the termination of each workshop.

Considering the individual competences of the learners and our goals it would not have been suitable to use another kind of written test to evaluate the knowledge gained by the participants. The participants of our workshops, a lot of them with immigration background, have different standards of verbal competences, in reading, talking and writing. Their educational levels are also very heterogeneous.
In view of these facts we decided that it would be counterproductive and de-motivating to confront them with a final test in which they would be asked to document their gained knowledge in written form, especially considering that the participants had a strong resistance to filling in any kind of forms.
For the evaluation of the gained knowledge and skills we used the feedback-rounds, which took place after each workshop day and period to get an overview which knowledge and skills the participants acquired. The method of these feedback-rounds was that each participant told about his or her individual increase of knowledge and which aspects they could probably employ in their professional or private life.
This method can be entitled "self-assessment" and is also very common in the human resource development. This method is very suitable, especially for these vulnerable people, who often have a lack in awareness of themselves, cannot draw limits and express their own interests in a positive way.
The participants additionally received a folder to collect all the hand outs they received in the different workshops, concerning the taught knowledge, e.g. on pedagogics, psychology, philosophy, religion, theories on education, visual and performing arts, literature, music, etc.
With this folder they have a kind of personal encyclopedia, which they can complete step by step.
The instructors identified on the basis of these feedback-discussions and during the workshops too that the participants gained a considerable increase in social skills and competences, such as verbal and self-presentation skills, team-working, self-confidence and tolerance. Moreover they got acquainted with learning methods and how to acquire knowledge and use it in everyday life.
Often they learned (methods, knowledge) by doing, but they did not recognize this process as "learning". They have the impression that learning has to be like it was at school. It is hard for them to understand that learning is an active process for which an adult person has to take responsibility. To lead them to another perspective was one of the main goals of our workshops.