ABSTRACT
In assessing learning, the act of seeing gives way to the act of understanding; the process of collecting evidence is followed by attempts to make the evidence meaningful. Description and narrative stimulate interpretations and judgements. In this part of the practice of assessment, the assessors strive to make sense of what they have seen and remembered. As they do so, however, they are always aware that the collection and selection of evidence is, in spite of every effort at completeness, inevitably partial and incomplete. The characteristics of the human mind limit the extent to which we can develop totally objective ways of looking. The conditions of classroom life set severe constraints on our ability to amass evidence of children’s learning.
