CONTROL AND ASSESSMENT IN PRIMARY SCHOOL IN UKRAINE: FROM FORMALISM TO HUMANIZATION (1920S–2020S)

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of the study is to conduct a retrospective analysis of the development of control and assessment as components of the educational process in primary schools of Ukraine during the 1920s–2020s and to identify the main trends in their transformation from formalized to humanistically oriented approaches.

Methodology. The article was prepared on the basis of historiographical, source-based, problem-chronological, comparative-historical, hermeneutic, and systemic approaches. Their application made it possible to determine the state of scholarly development of the problem, analyze the research sources, trace changes in the control and assessment of younger students’ learning achievements during the 1920s–2020s, compare their functions, forms, methods, and criteria in different periods of primary education development, and generalize the transformations of assessment activity.

Scientific novelty. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that the development of control and assessment in primary schools of Ukraine has for the first time been comprehensively traced within broad chronological boundaries, from the 1920s to the 2020s. The trends and factors of the transformation of assessment activity have been clarified, and its evolution from a formalized approach to a humanistically oriented model of assessment has been demonstrated.

Conclusions. It has been established that the development of control and assessment in primary schools of Ukraine was complex and contradictory. The leading trends were the dominance of a formalized approach, the gradual expansion of assessment functions, consideration of children’s age and individual characteristics, the strengthening of humanistic principles, and the reorientation of assessment toward the personal development of the younger schoolchild.