Midterm Evaluation

The Midterm Evaluation is a conversation that takes place halfway both RP1 and RP2. Its goal is to establish how the project has been going so far. While this is a straightforward question, there are still some pointers for this conversation.

• The Midterm Evaluation is both a moment for the hosting lab to indicate points of improvement to the student, and for the student to give feedback from their point of view.
• While there are a lot of aspects of a project that could in principle be discussed, it makes sense to focus on the most important points and only briefly touch on the rest, if at all.
• The important things for the project were already laid out in the work agreement set out during the Intake Meeting, so use that as a basis, together with the respective grading rubrics.

We no longer use dedicated forms to monitor the content of Midterm Evaluations, as they detracted from the actual conversation and turned the moment into a form-filling exercise, rather than a reflection on the project. However, we are still interested to hear if a Midterm Evaluation reveals dissatisfaction with the project or if the Midterm Evaluation reveals that project planning has to be changed.

Didactic role of the Midterm Evaluation

From an educational perspective, the Midterm Evaluation marks the switch between the training and the assessment period of the project. Before the Midterm Evaluation, the student receives direct instruction and guidance and the supervisor can witness their growth and provide feedback dynamically. During the Midterm Evaluation, more extensive feedback is provided and after the Midterm Evaluation, it becomes possible to see whether the student can self-direct on the basis of that feedback and perform tasks more independently. It is this latter period that informs the assessment of the project.

The Midterm Evaluation is then a breaking point of sorts, providing clear feedback on student performance so far and giving pointers as to how performance could improve. This means it quite naturally sets expectations for assessment from the side of the student: a positive Midterm Evaluation makes them expect a positive grade, for example. Some supervisors therefore prefer to fully run through the grading rubric for the project, indicating what their thoughts are per element that will be graded.