Educational Diagnosis: Types, How It Is Done and Example

Table of Contents

Last Updated on April 13, 2023 by Mike Robinson

An educational diagnosis is the set of judgments and qualifications that are carried out with the objective of evaluating different characteristics of the students within a teaching process. These characteristics can be related to several areas, such as physical or intellectual abilities, learning or school difficulties.

The main objective of this type of practice is to gather evidence that allows educators to adjust their teaching methods to the individual needs of each student.

In this way, they become a very valuable resource to improve the educational process and to make better decisions regarding the way to teach in the future.

Educational diagnoses, also known as pedagogical diagnoses, fulfill three functions: preventive, to avoid problems before they occur; predictive, to discover what is causing a student’s difficulties; and corrective, to develop an action plan that allows to solve them.

Depending on the aspects studied, there are mainly five types of educational diagnoses: individual, global-general, @nalytical, group and specific. Next, we will see what each of these consists of.

Individual diagnosis

This type of educational diagnosis is responsible for studying different aspects of a particular student.

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Some examples may be your learning skills, your intellectual abilities, the way you behave in the classroom or even your personality and your way of being. In this way, an individual diagnosis will take place when a student exhibits problematic behaviors that we think are related only to their individual characteristics.

Global-general

Educational diagnoses of the global-general type will take place, especially in situations in which it is necessary to know in depth different aspects of a person. With this type of examination, you can study the biological level (such as the height or presence of diseases), the psychological level (intelligence, personality), the socio-environmental level (country of origin, economic status) and the educational level (level of education) reached, extracurricular activities).

This type of diagnosis takes place, for example, when a person wants to become part of a public institution such as the army or the government.

Analytical

The third type of educational diagnosis is made in cases in which a person has a problem related to their learning. Its main objective is to determine what are the causes that cause it so that you can intervene in it.

These problems can be related to the qualifications, but they can also be of a more personal nature. For example, if a child shows signs of psychological abuse, it is the duty of the teaching team to investigate further on the subject.

Group

This type of educational diagnosis focuses on studying problems that concern not just one individual, but a whole group (for example, all students in a class). It can be done to understand why problems occur with this set of students in particular and to propose solutions to them.

For example, a teacher whose class is especially problematic would have to study the different group dynamics present in it. In this way, he could intervene effectively on all the components of the classroom, and not just on each of them individually.

Specific

Finally, educational diagnoses of a specific type focus on studying all those problems related to a specific aspect of a student. Some examples would be language disorders, visual or auditory problems, delays in physical or motor development, among others.

Methods to Use

To carry out an educational diagnosis in an adequate way, educators have to go through a series of phases:

– Planning.

– Exploration.

– Analysis.

– Solutions.

Planning

Planning is the part of educational diagnosis in which educators have to decide what they will study with it. In this first stage, the relevant elements are chosen for the case, proposing the objective that is to be achieved with the investigation.

On the other hand, teachers must also indicate how they will collect the information, choosing different instruments and measurement techniques. Thus, in the planning stage, the groundwork must happen first in order to define the rest of the process in advance.

Exploration

Once the variables to study and the way to investigate them are available, those in charge of the pedagogical diagnostic process will have to start collecting the relevant data for the case.

This can involve everything from the application of all kinds of tests or exams to research on certain aspects of the student’s life, such as their family situation, background, or previous studies that have taken place.

The way to carry out this phase will depend on the type of educational diagnosis that is going to occur.

Analysis

Once all the data relevant to the research is available, the next task that the teachers have to carry out is to analyze it to find out where the problems presented by the student or group of students come from.

For this, the better you define what you want to achieve in the first stage and the more relevant the data that is available, the easier the analysis process will be.

Solutions

If the process occurs in the correct way and the results are satisfactory, at this point those responsible for the educational diagnosis will know the causes of the problem suffered by the student or group.

Thanks to this, they will be able to propose suitable solutions and intervene in the situation. These solutions will have to be analyzed once they are applied to determine if they have obtained the expected results or not.

Example

Next, we will examine a specific case so that we better understand how the process of applying an educational diagnosis works. It deals with the study of the problems of a student who has suspended all subjects in the first year of ESO.

Planning

The teacher, observing the student and his school performance, has the hypothesis that he has some kind of intellectual deficiency. To study this theory, he decides to apply a series of intelligence tests.

Exploration

Once they have selected the applicable tests, the teacher will pass the tests on to the student, who will perform several of them to compare the results with each other.

Analysis

The data collected by the intelligence tests show that the student has a slight cognitive deficiency. With this information, the teacher could formulate an intervention plan in the last step.