Plain English Meaning
Evaluation is judging whether a student met the standard. Critique is helping the student get better. One produces a grade or pass/fail decision; the other produces learning and improvement.
Full Definition
A distinction in aviation instruction between two different assessment activities. An evaluation is a formal, often graded judgment of a learner's performance against established standards, used to decide whether the learner has met required outcomes. A critique is an instructional review of performance — usually informal and not graded — designed to help the learner improve by analyzing what went well, what did not, and why.
Context Anchor
Seen in flight instructor training, lesson planning, after-flight discussions, and any setting where an instructor reviews a pilot’s performance.
Derivation
Evaluation comes from the French évaluer, meaning to determine the of something — , because an evaluation assigns a value or grade. Critique comes from the Greek kritikē, meaning the art of judging, but in it has come to mean a review aimed at improvement rather than a verdict.