Educational Evaluation to Inform and Improve Curriculum Development at School

The Study of“Rashomon  Approach” in Curriculum Development

Abstract

 OECD-CERI launched a project for“Curriculum  Development” in 1970s. During the seminar of this project held in Tokyo, the working group 2 reached an agreement that there were two different styles of curriculum development, namely“Technological  Approach” and“Rashomon  Approach.” The current academic discussion in Japan tends to generalize the“Rashomon  Approach” and“Goal-Free  Evaluation” as the educational ideas that deny setting common educational standards and“goal-referenced  evaluation.”

 However, investigation on the educational thoughts addressed in working group 2 in 1960-1970s revealed following. First,“Rashomon  Approach” contained various concepts. Second, the most crucial part of“Rashomon  Approach” cannot be attributed to neither OECD-CERI nor Atkin, but to Japanese members. Third,“goal-free  evaluation” was misunderstood as the idea that denied setting common educational standards in Japan. Forth, as a result, continuous discussions about educational evaluation to inform and improve curriculum development were lost in 1980-1990s in Japan.