Day 17- Critical Evaluation

Today I could not attend to the lecture because of that I referred to one of my friends note to update my blog. Today lecturer has discussed about a very important topic "Critical Evaluation". Below I have included some of the definitions of critical evaluation defined by various people.

According to Hulme (2004) critical evaluation is "Critical evaluation is a process of assessing the relative merit of a piece of work, which may have been presented as a journal article, in a text book, on the internet, in a radio or television article, or in just about any other format (for academic purposes, this will usually be written, but could include seminar presentations)". The crucial word is the “evaluate” – to measure the value of something

DTLS (2012)  has described critical evaluation as "weigh arguments for and against something, assessing all evidence. Decide which opinions, theories, models or items are preferable".

Figure 1: The process of Critical Evaluation (Partnershipforoldersadults, 2012)

Module lecturer Mr Eranjan has described critical evaluation as a formal argument which highlights both, the positives and negatives and there is sufficient amount of evidence to support the argument. Upon completion of the argument, the writer should mention his justification i.e. which side does he/she support and why. So, to summarize a critical evaluation consists of the following:

1. Argument
2. Evidence
3. Justification

After the discussion lecturer had shown a video where different students from different universities share their knowledge,ideas about critical evaluation. After that lecturer has wrapped up the class.

Learning Outcomes:-

From this lecture I understood what is really a critical evaluation, because I had a different idea about critical evaluation and I have done some mistakes when I was writing critical evaluations in my previous projects. Now I have a clear understanding of critical evaluation and I can write it in a better way in my future assignments including my FYP.

References:-

DTLS. (2012). Critical Evaluation. [Online]. Available at: http://www.dtls.cqu.edu.au/clc/2_1_1.html [Accessed 16th August 2012]

Hulme, J.A. (2004).  Critical Evaluation: A Student Guide.  Psychology Review, 10, 6-8. 

Partnerships for older adults (2012). The Process of Critcal Evaluation. [Online]. Available at: http://www.partnershipsforolderadults.org/content/95825ee1-0167-45a1-8617-48ce2b47c4ac/images/evaluation-L1-flow.gif [Accessed 16th August 2012]