Evaluation as a Cognitive Process

Abstract

Evaluation is one of a number of so-called ‘higher order’ cognitive processes that are involved in the brain’s survival activities, including those extensions of basic coping processes (such as concept formation) that go into scientific and technological developments (like hypothesis testing). Some of these have been brought into various theories of learning and teaching. For example, in the (Benjamin) Bloom taxonomy, evaluation is listed as the intellectual activity at the top of the pyramid of skills at which teaching can be aimed. In this note, we’ll look at some of the other cognitive processes that need to be distinguished from evaluation, and look at unpacking evaluation into some component processes. Doing this will help us avoid some confusions that hamper effective evaluation work, and also provide another kind of foundation for an epistemology and logic of evaluation.