تقييم البرمجيات التعليمية

الملخص EN

It is clear that , today trend towards using courseware for instructional purposes is increasing.

Therefore , it becomes imparative for educators, especially teachers, to be able to identify and select well-prepared courseware, which is instructionally effective.

To reahze this objective , it is proposed that specialized courseware evaluation establishments or bodies should be formed , especially in the public sector , similar to that establishment which evaluates textbooks , and provide educators with the information they need about couresware packages available in the market.

It is expected that the courseware evaluation process will face some interrelated problems, which will decrease the objectivity of the results of that process.

Some of those problems are : the subjectivity in the evaluation process, the participation of students in the evaluation process, the disagreement on a set of characterstics that should be available in any well-prepared piece of courseware , as well as the instructional effectiveness of the program.

what can such establishments responsible for courseware evaluation do , to improve their evaluation methods ? To minimize the effects of such kind of problems , certain measures should be done .

The members of the evaluation teams should be selected from specialized competent school teachers after being trained for this purpose .

To incorporate students as participants in the process of evaluation , will improve the evaluation method , and upgrade its objectivity.

Members of the evaluation team , should ask a class of students of the target population to run the program , observe and supervise them as they use the program, collect data of their impressions about the program , and assess how much students have learned as a result of using that program under evalution.

By doing so , evaluators conclusions and judgements about the quality of that piece of software, probably will be fair and more objective .

Regarding the lack of an agreed-upon standards for evaluation courseware, it is recommended that either a set of criterion elements could be developed and validated, or a well-known educational theory can be adopted and applied to the courseware package, i.e.

evaluation against learning theory .