THE SYSTEM OF EVALUATION OF STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENTS AS AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

In the paper a methodical system of checking the level of achieving educational goals at the university is presented, and some its practical features are characterized. Construction of the evaluation system requires defining the main structural and functional components of educational system. The latter contains an assessment component, existing at two levels. First, the basic concepts, theories, and rules, mastering of fundamental knowledge, and generalized skills should be examined. Fullness of assimilation of the knowledge, understanding of problems, ability of explanation of phenomena and processes, assimilation of appropriate terminology can be treated as criteria of obtaining goals of education. Also, accomplishment of formulation of educational problems, searching of information, executing of experiments could be considered here. Higher level of the educational competency, contains different types of their self-reliant activity. It can be shown by the ability to solve complex or non-standard problems, in which intra-, and interdisciplinary links are realized, and which need the application of the acquired knowledge for achieving a new one. This level of methodological competency needs creativeness and ability of complex usage of the obtained knowledge in the different situations. The above mentioned principles have been applied in the methodical system of teaching inorganic chemistry. In the paper the ranking system proposed for complete evaluation of students' achievements and its constituents are described in details. Every kind of student's activity is valued in points. Additional points can be obtained e.g. for a presentation at a conference. Penalty points are subtracted for absence at the seminars or laboratories. The essence of the ranking system is the necessity of gathering points, which are converted into the traditional marks at the end of each semester. The points collected all over the year account for 40% of the total end mark. Points obtained for the final test account for the remaining 60%. Thus, it's easier to pass the exam, however, student's activity during seminars and laboratories is needed. Many years experience shows, that proposed ranking system helps to improve quality of educational process.