Abstract:

The school has the task to ensure systematic teaching and encouraging the integral development of students according to their capabilities. One of the tasks of the teacher in the education and upbringing process is the regular evaluation of students’ achievements. It is an inevitable and very responsible task that the teacher performs and it implies the processes of monitoring, verifying and grading students. In grading, the teacher tries to spot the difficulties and their causes in learning, and to evaluate the capacities of students in connecting knowledge. Assistance in learning and reporting on what was learned are important reasons for evaluating students, and assessment as the last component of evaluation represents the awarding of a grade for the achieved results of students.
The goal of the research is to establish the forms of verification and grading students most often used by teachers in evaluating the achievement of students, and to examine the opinion of teachers in grading in lower grades of primary education. A survey questionnaire testing the monitoring processes and the grading used by teachers in the education and upbringing performance, the opinion of teachers in grading and the teachers’ assessment of parents’ reaction on grades has been drawn up for the needs of the research. The sample was made up by teachers (N=110) of lower primary school grades in eleven chosen schools in the area of Šibenik and Zadar.
The results show that teachers only verify the oral and written knowledge of students, and only a small part applies both forms of verification equally. Almost half of the respondents prefer numerical evaluation as a form of evaluation, while the rest of the respondents equally evaluate knowledge descriptively and numerically. In addition, the results show that teachers adhere to the Rulebook on methods, procedures and elements of student evaluation, provide feedback to the student about the assigned grade, apply special criteria for monitoring and grading students with disabilities, and in the conclusion of grades they took into consideration the notes from the descriptive grading rubrics. The respondents confirmed that grades are a high motivation factor for students and numerical and descriptive grades give a complete picture of their achievements. Parents sanction bad grades with bans and motivate children with material awards for achieving better grades.

Keywords:

Evaluation, verification, grading, student, teacher.