espanolEl articulo presenta los resultados de un ejercicio de investigacion In Situ que se desarrollo en dos universidades colombianas con el proposito de establecer cuales son las razones que expresan los estudiantes para justificar sus preferencias en la evaluacion y su relacion con el rendimiento academico. Se empleo la metodologia mixta aplicando un cuestionario de preguntas cerradas, tipo escala Likert, a 300 estudiantes, y a 12 grupos focales. Algunos de los resultados muestran que la poblacion objeto de estudio valora las pruebas estandarizadas dependiendo del area de formacion, y al mismo tiempo otorga un significado importante a aquellas pruebas que tienen en cuenta el contexto cultural. Otro hallazgo muestra una tendencia importante de articulacion entre “la precision”, “la relacion” y “la eleccion” que, si bien senalan que los estudiantes rinden academicamente, los resultados no mostrarian necesariamente que estan aprendiendo. La globalidad de los resultados sugiere que la poblacion intervenida justifico sus respuestas con relacion al aprendizaje, teniendo en cuenta mas el rendimiento academico que el aprendizaje propiamente dicho, pues algunas de las narraciones recabadas en los grupos focales coinciden en confirmar esta tesis. EnglishThis paper presents the results of an in situ research exercise that was conducted in two Colombian universities. The purpose of this study was to establish the reasons that students express to justify their preferences in the evaluation methods and their to academic performance. The mixed methodology was used by applying a Likert scale type survey and 12 focus groups, with closed questions, to 300 students. Some of the results show that the population under study evaluates the standardized tests depending on the area of training. At the same time, it adscribes meaning to those tests which involve the cultural context. Another finding shows an important tendency to articulate accuracy, relationship and choice with each other and, even though the tests can reflect academic performance, the results do not necessarily show that meaningful learning is taking place. On the other hand, in the imaginary of the population under study there are strong preferences towards more objective evaluation tools, which in many ways are defended by a significant percentage of students. The global results suggest that the intervened population justified their answers taking into account academic performance more than learning itself, since some of the narratives gathered in the focus groups corroborate this thesis.