Explicit and Unconscious Dimensions of the Evaluation of Educators

Introduction The evaluation is a critical issue for the adult education policies and is strictly connected with the professional development of the educators. The evaluation has dimensions explicit, implicit and unconscious. These are not verifiable but strongly influence the behaviours. Objective It is presented a Grundwig Project (6 european partners), that aims at defining the professional profile of the evaluator. It wants to improve knowledge and awareness in the adult education system looking at the evaluation as a critical part of it. There is a strong pressure on the institutions and services to be evaluated, thinking that this rational action would guarantee quality. The Project want to demonstrate that the evaluation is heavily conditioned by not rational, emotional, unconscious dimensions. Method A first phase has been developed throughout a literature and regulamentation review, regarding the european and the national (related to the Country involved in the project) state of art the topic, in order to define the general overview of the evaluation of adult education staff. Then, the second phase has been developed throughout qualitative methods (narrative inquiry and psychoanalytical approach). It used narrative and not structured interviews, in order to make the opinions, the beliefs, the ambiguities of the evaluators emerge. At the end: a reasoning between what it has been gathered from the analytical point of view and what has been interpreted from the protocols of the interviews. Results The officially recognized evaluators (ISO 9001) make evaluation and certification on the external dimensions of evaluation but are not able to go deeply into the contradictions and the ambiguities of the educational relationship between educators and final users. Conclusions It is necessary to help the evaluators to get consciousness of the not visible emotional dimensions of the evaluation and the institutions and policy makers to open the procedures of evaluation and to make space also for other more qualitative approaches.