1113 The Docimologically Based Evaluation of Knowledge in Vocational Education of Healthcare Professionals Dejan Živanović 1 , Jovan Javorac 1 , Adriano Friganović 2 and Evangelos Fradelos 3 1 Department of biomedical sciences, College of vocational studies for the education of preschool teachers and sports trainers in Subotica, Serbia 2 Department of nursing, University of applied health sciences in Zagreb, Croatia 3 Department of nursing, University of Thessaly in Larissa, Greece Abstract Diversity of teaching curriculum in vocational subjects requires the application of different didactic-methodical approaches to teaching, and thus different methods for students’ knowledge evaluation. Objective assessment of knowledge is the imperative of the quality vocational education of healthcare professionals; in the evaluation of students’ progress and final assessment of students’ knowledge, the formative and summative methods are commonly used during or after the course of a particular subject. Modern higher education insists on objectivity and scientific foundation of the evaluation process, which is the main reason why the didactic docimology has finally received a deserved place in the pedagogical practice in the last decades. The aim of this paper is to emphasize the importance of the unconditional appliance of scientific principles in students’ knowledge evaluation, critically analyze elements of the existing objective methods of assessment in vocational education of healthcare professionals, and to emphasize the social and professional significance of the student’s final grade, which should be an unambiguous indicator of acquired professional skills of a graduate student of healthcare sciences. Key words: final grade; formative knowledge assessment; healthcare science; skills; summative knowledge assessment. Introduction Healthcare sciences, including nursing science, physiotherapy, nutritionism, applied medical radiology, midwifery and others, represent the group of the relatively young Croatian Journal of Education Vol.22; No.4/2020, pages: 1113-1135 Review paper Paper submitted: 7 th November 2019 Paper accepted: 23 th June 2020 https://doi.org/10.15516/cje.v22i4.3806