Involvement in assessment

At the start of the academic year, the engineering team meet to decide their assessment strategy in meeting the needs of learners as required by the course specification provided by the awarding body or the college. Brian, as the internal verifier and domain assessor, reminds everyone of their obligations to the assessment policy and procedures within the institution and their roles and tasks in fulfilling those requirements. He also reminds the team of their combined goals.  He has asked Aisha to design a new assessment for the engineering specification and to make it appropriate to current ways of working in industry. He has also asked that this piece of work be appropriate to unit 2 for this particular line of learning for the new diploma. He ensures that the principles of assessment are applied to the tasks she has in mind and checks that these are fit not only for her own learners, but also for the learners of her fellow team members. He checks the requirement of the specification and suggests an appropriate range of tasks, ensuring that these are valid. He also identifies appropriate opportunities for these tasks to be carried out by agreeing with his team an appropriate scheduling of the assessments. He asks Aisha to produce the material in a timely manner so that he can sign off the assignment before the rest of the team will need to use it. He expects that the assessment criteria and objectives will be explained to the learners in a timely manner, so that they understand what is expected of them, as well as explaining the appeals procedures that the learners can instigate if they disagree with any of his team's assessments. He finally ensures that an accurate record of this meeting is written, with the agreed actions listed as well as the completion date recorded.

Brian asks Aisha to lead the rest of the team through the assessment tasks, as part of her on-going CPD. He checks her understanding of the assessment criteria and ensures that the rest of the team also understand how to apply the criteria. The team will then assess a quota of their learners' work in accordance with the assessment criteria that they have agreed. Following this, each team member will standardise their own work, by applying the agreed mark scheme to the assessment objectives and offer a quota of the assessments to Brian for moderation. Once this has been agreed by him, he will record the details of the assessments and collate all the results, checking that the assessment has discriminated fairly based upon the outputs and the range of learners for whom he is responsible. Each team member then feeds back to the learners using the faculty's agreed procedures and pro forma.

In his IV role Brian now evaluates the evidence from the learners. He analyses the data carefully, checking for trends or any unsuspected outcomes. He uses this data to add to the team's evidence of reliability and validity of the assessment. At the next team meeting, where the feedback relating to the assessment is given, he develops an agreed set of action plans to improve the quality of the assessment, if indeed there need to be any changes. He will also determine if any members of the team are either lenient or harsh markers, or if any of them display any inconsistencies in their assessment. Using all of the evidence collated across the team, he will expect each team member to develop learning goals for their groups of learners and suggest ways in which they can improve their performances and achievement. The wealth of data also allows the rest of the team to manage their own development needs. He is now also in a position to feedback to the external verifier on the trends that have been identified supplying the evidence relating to the assessment, as well as the indicative grades or marks for that unit. He can also discuss this with the external verifier and any employers who may have questions about the nature of the assessment, as well as discussing the actions with the Lead Assessor.  He can also feed the information to the exams officer, who may need to add the data to to the spreadsheets required by the awarding body. For quality assurance purposes he also keeps a record of all agreed actions and completion dates.

This process will have given Brian the opportunity to reflect on the team's strengths and weaknesses in understanding the process of assessment. He can use the feedback he has been given to determine each team member's learning goals, as well as those of the learners. He is now in a position to plan a series of learning outcomes that will improve performance across the team and can ask for the monies to deliver that training and release his team from timetable duties if necessary. He shares his action plan with the Lead Assessor and the external verifier, both of whom may well add to the list of goals following the team's development of the assessment. He will also be in a strong position to evaluate the impact of any further training upon which the team embarks because the criteria have been agreed with both the Lead Assessor and the external verifier and the objectives of the training are clearly set and based upon evidence.

Not only has this process contributed to the individual team member's personal development, the process has also contributed effectively to the development of team goals. Aisha's work will have contributed to team goals that were discussed at the start of the academic year. In developing the assessment in this way and encouraging close co-operation across the team on the processes, Brian will have contributed to the setting and achievement of goals for the entire team as well as for himself. The practices that he has put in place and which he has discussed with other members of the team as well as the Lead Assessor and the EV and amended in the light of their comments will have allowed him to share good practice and to fulfil his commitments to the rest of the team and to his line manager. The process will also have encouraged him to support others through the changes brought about by this new form of assessment. He will also have a clear record of all actions as well as their completion dates to share with both the Lead Assessor and the EV.

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Goal: Apply for Fellow status  and CEA status.