The origins of evaluation research worldwide are linked to education. It was here that the evaluation’s identity primarily developed, its main goals and functions were defined, and its evolution through successive generations took place over many decades. Evaluation here was a form of research whose primary goals were focused on evaluation, support, reflection, socialization, dialogue, inspiration, animation, and diagnosis, thus fulfilling developmental, interactive, diagnostic, and planning functions, among others.

Polish methods of using evaluation research have lost sight of its motivating, critical, socializing, and even educational functions, leading to its devaluation. Attempts to implement it in education have reduced evaluation research to accreditation, assigning it control functions. Similarly, the identity of evaluation in higher education has been lost by labeling parameterization as evaluation. This confusion of various research methods not only results in the substitution of terms for one another, but above all, it has led to an inappropriate modification of the definition of evaluation, leading to a growing reluctance among communities to use it. It is precisely contemporary Polish education at all stages that requires actions to support its development. Therefore, in the Polish educational reality, we increasingly need to resocialize evaluation, or revaluation.

The topics addressed in this section aim to present the theoretical and practical possibilities of using evaluation research as applied social research for the benefit of organizers and participants of broadly defined educational projects, with particular emphasis on projects implemented in specific social and institutional environments. A crucial element would also be to present evaluation from a cultural and cross-cultural perspective as a reflective research activity that leads to the development of critical thinking aimed at developing and changing the culture of specific teams focused on improvement through consciously applied evaluation methods, with a particular interest in humanistic research methodology.

Moderation: Prof. Sylwia Jaskuła, Jagiellonian University

Panelists:

• Prof. Peter Jonkers – Scientific Council of the Vatican Commission for the Quality of University Education (AVEPRO)
• Prof. Volodymyr Yewtukh – Dragomanov University (Kyiv, Ukraine)
• Prof. Maria Groenwald – University of Gdańsk
• Prof. Ewa Kusideł – University of Łódź
• Dr Agnieszka Muzyk – Director of the Regional Examination Board in Łomża