The Study of The Strengths And Weaknesses of Descriptive Evaluation In Virtual Education From The Perspective of Elementary Teachers In Mazandaran Province

The main goal of this research was to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of descriptive evaluation in virtual education from the perspective of elementary teachers in Mazandaran province. The most important process in any educational system is evaluation. Because it helps the teacher and the student to reach the educational goals with confidence, and by showing the strengths and weaknesses of the teaching and learning processes, it provides the tools for correcting and improving them in time. Descriptive type of evaluation is one of the important pillars of educational changes, because due to the importance of the elementary school, the need for a creativity-oriented evaluation system, which focuses on assignments and activities, seems mandatory, so that positive feedback can be provided to students. In the meantime, due to the restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, virtual education is proposed as one of the important applications of new information and communication technology in Iran and many countries of the world, especially in the primary period. Extensive activities were started in this field. Distance education (online education) has been one of the most prominent changes required by schools in this era. Because these critical conditions in the vital matters of education have required teachers and students to quickly adapt themselves to distance education, and in this way, changes in the type of teaching, the learning process, and especially the evaluation method were achieved (Bubb & Jones, 2020; Hassani, Gholam Azad & Naveedi, 2022; Kim & Asbury, 2020). Apart from the favorable points of the virtual education process in advancing the learning process, in the pandemic situation, voice messages in virtual groups, online surveys, discussion boards and chat boxes have become the main components of descriptive evaluation in the virtual classroom. However, the resulting weaknesses are significant. Among the biggest problems of teaching and learning in virtual education, we can point out the lack of an efficient way for learners to measure their progress and the poor quality of this type of evaluation by teachers (Moss et al, 2020; Folkman, Josefsson & Fjetland, 2023). It seems that this plan is far from its ideal state and has not been able to achieve the specified goals and there is a lot of dissatisfaction among the implementers of this plan. For example, the objectives of the plan are not clear, the interpretation of information in the form of scales is difficult and tasteful. Confusion of students in entering higher grades and lack of evaluation and feedback from teachers during and at the end of the year. An example of the challenges and problems in this approach is descriptive-qualitative evaluation, especially in online and remote conditions. (Khazai, Golamhosseini Frieze Handi & Samadi, 2017).
Although there are different theories regarding the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative and descriptive evaluation in education, and of course, most of the literature is related to descriptive evaluation in face-to-face education. The experience of expert teachers in this field should be carefully examined.
In this regard, the present research intends to examine the following questions:
1- What are the strengths of descriptive evaluation in virtual education from the perspective of primary teachers?
2- From the point of view of elementary teachers, what are the weaknesses of descriptive evaluation in the course of virtual education?
The current research design is combined (exploratory-sequential) and two phenomenological and descriptive survey methods have been used. The participants of the qualitative part included descriptive evaluation teachers, leaders, heads of educational groups and primary teachers, data collection reached theoretical saturation through semi-structured interviews with 16 of them. The analysis method in the qualitative part was thematic analysis (comprehensive, organizing and basic). In the qualitative part, the results were identified and classified in the form of two comprehensive themes, 6 organizing themes and 44 basic themes. In the quantitative part, the statistical population included all the primary teachers of Mazandaran province in the number of 9464 people. The statistical sample was estimated to be 370 people using Morgan's table. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire and it was analyzed using exploratory factor analysis with the help of SPSS software. In the quantitative part, the strengths include: increasing psychological capital and collaboration (10 items) and improving the learning flow (7 items) and the weaknesses include: weak interaction (10 items), structural weakness (6 items), educational weakness (7 items), weak data collection and evaluation (4 items) were identified. Descriptive evaluation in the virtual environment has significant weaknesses in addition to its strengths. Neglecting them will cause serious damages in the primary education system.
The findings of this research show, on the one hand, that descriptive evaluation in virtual learning environments has facilities and capabilities that can be used to use effective methods and strategies to evaluate students' learning and this in Meanwhile, the usability of these facilities and tools is very important for teachers and students, as well as the validity of the evaluation results. They mean the facilities that according to today's conditions in terms of speed, bandwidth, hardware facilities of students and teachers are compatible with them. But on the other hand, the inefficiency of the descriptive evaluation system in virtual education has occurred more than before in this research. It seems that descriptive evaluation in the virtual classroom has many weaknesses and cannot fully consider all aspects of the evaluation. The reason for the failure in collecting information, processing it, etc. has caused a dull atmosphere. It is clear that the successful implementation of the descriptive evaluation program in virtual education is dependent on the observance of various and numerous pre-requisites and facilities, the lack of attention to the observance of these pre-requisites will reduce its effectiveness and cause many damages to the primary education system. will be. According to the discovery of a reality related to the emergence of a wide range of mental and physical pressure on elementary teachers, it is necessary to conduct independent and comprehensive research on the manner, extent and process of the formation of this space in order to prevent the escalation of this problem and its subsequent consequences. on the teachers, and solutions should be considered to reduce this pressure and improve the conditions of the teachers. It is suggested that in order to carry out a better and more complete descriptive evaluation, the officials of the Iranian educational system should include integrated education (in-person-virtual education) in their agenda