The Evaluation of Performance in the Study of Engineering

Using engineering as an example, this article empirically examines the assessment of students at universities. To this end, it presents two phases of the university course: practicing and applying specialist knowledge in workshops and test laboratories, as well as presenting the results of group work. The evaluation following these two phases are analyzed as continuous and explicit forms of evaluation. Theoretically, the article takes a recognition theory perspective, replacing decontextualizing research through a contextualizing perspective, and argues that performance only comes about through the assessment and evaluation itself, that its outcome is contingent, and that it simultaneously has strong biographical effects.