1.2.1 The six cases

This question is addressed through the following sub-research questions:

 How do different contexts (e.g. different institutional policy contexts and their purposes, including credentialing, discourses and practices) mediate assessment practices and decisions?  What are the current experiences of and challenges in assessment for learners, AEs, providers, and employers?  What factors enable and/or hinder establishments and practitioners in adopting leading practices in assessment?

We analysed the data for each case and across the cases and wrote this up into a total of seven reports: six individual case study reports and this summative report, which is the cross-case analysis of the six case studies. The cross-case analysis draws on the findings from across the cases to discuss common/shared themes, as well as the implications these may have for developing assessment practices for the changing nature of work.

The six cases in this study show:

 a variety of purposes, forms and meanings of assessment;  the blurred boundaries between summative and formative assessment;  the “assessment dilemmas” that ensue from multiple needs of business, learning/training and employee welfare, and also from different expectations between industry, institution and learners;  different modes of learning across different industries, and professional and disciplinary domains, where learning is enacted/enabled through: o practice, drills and experience (rota commanders); o doing, interacting and experimenting (aircraft engineers); o inquiry and testing (IT network engineers); o the embodiedness of know-how in professional cooking which highlights, for example, the importance of “taste”, expressed in and through the cook’s work.

The report for each case was written up and sent back to the “owners” of the case (the organisation that kindly gave us access to the documents, learners and staff) for verification and input. All owners responded with suggestions and began the process of thinking about potential changes in their approaches to assessment.

1.2.1 The six cases

In selecting the cases, we looked for assessment approaches that met the following criteria:

 diversity of current assessment practices;  different types of providers;  assessment activities including classroom, workplace and/or e-learning settings;  different types of accreditation frameworks;  identified by providers as good assessment practices;  containing workplace learning components and/or other blended approaches;  willingness to participate in project and timing of the module (to fit our commitments).

As a result, the selected cases are quite varied. They are: the certification of workplace learning facilitators, the introduction of promotional menu items at a food and beverage outlet, the certification of rota commanders, a residency programme for doctors, an undergraduate degree programme in aircraft engineering and a certification in IT network solutioning. The commonalities among these cases are that they all involve both formal (structured) and informal assessment practices; they are applied,

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