The Assessment of Work-Based Learning:Complexity and Challenge

Mantz YorkeLancaster University

mantzyorke@mantzyorke.plus.com

SACWG Seminar Aston University

26 November 2009

Many employability-relevant achievements are complex, and are best demonstrated in authentic or quasi-authentic settings

Complexity

(T)reating (required competences) as separate bundles of knowledge and skills for assessment purposes fails to recognize that complex professional actions require more than several different areas of knowledge and skills. They all have to be integrated together in larger, more complex chunks of behaviour.

Eraut (2004. p.804)

Problems in the world of work

are often characterised by

• ‘happenstance’

• ‘messiness’

• incompleteness of information

• multidisciplinarity

• engagement of others

and possibly

• the pragmatic necessity to ‘satisfice’ (i.e. obtain a ‘good enough’ > a perfect outcome)

Problems in the world of work

Require not only

Relevant subject knowledge

but also

Understanding of the way the workplace runsSensitivity to the situations of others (‘emotional intelligence’)Appreciation of one’s own capabilities (and limits)

and, sometimes,

Imagination and creativity

The cognitive dimension

1 Remember

2 Understand

3 Apply

4 Analyze

5 Evaluate

6 Create

The knowledge dimension

The taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessment (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001, as viewed by Knight, 2007)

Employment emphases?

[Note that neither the affective nor the psychomotor domains are represented here]

Factual

Conceptual

Procedural

Metacognitive

Educational objectives and their assessment

Type of objective Problem Solution Assessment

Instructional Specified Specified Prescriptive

Problem-solving Specified/Open Open

‘Expressive’ Open Open Responsive

Social Open Open

NB: Some alleged problem-solving is essentially puzzle-solving, where there is a ‘right answer’. This should be placed in Row 1.

Questions and challenges

1: Structural

2: Technical

Some questions. 1: Structural

Who is assessing? (F/HE; Employer; Both)

How well do F/HE and workplace perspectives cohere?

How much expertise in the assessment of WBL do assessors have?

Is there an investment in training for assessment?

Is there a conflict between the roles of mentor and assessor?

What is being assessed?

• Performance on the job

• Work performance not on employer’s premises

• Project carried out in the workplace

• Assignment based on learning gained from W Exp

• Portfolio of work based on workplace experience

• Work-related assignment (e.g. essay)

Some questions. 2a: Technical

And how is the ‘groupness’ of much WBL taken into account?

Some questions. 2b: Technical

Expected learning outcomes have to be general

Assessments (formative & summative) have to take context into account

Assessments are judgements, not measurements

This has implications for grading systems

Some challenging areas: 1

Employer involvement in assessment of WBL

• Commitment to engagement in the whole of the assessment process

• Training

• Potential role conflict of mentor and assessor

Some challenging areas: 2

Standards, criteria and grading methodology

The heading understates the inherent complexity!

• Tension between context-specificity and consistency of standards

• Dealing with a different blend of the academic and the practical

• Assessing ‘in a foreign language’

• Staff development for the assessment of WBL

Quality assurance of assessment in WBL

These challenges have no easy answers