1. INTRODUCTION

It is no surprise that the nature of work is changing; it has always been changing. What is becoming more of a concern is the adequacy of educational legacies in helping to prepare people for the changing nature of work. Assessment and how we understand and use it is an important aspect of this new look at education in relation to work. This report seeks to expand the current understanding and ways of thinking about assessment, work, and learning. Current approaches to assessment tend to separate learning and assessment; we suggest that learning and assessment are integrated and entwined. When designed with such integration, assessment has the potential to lead to greater professionalisation and understanding of work, improve one’s capacity to learn beyond the immediate course/training, and enhance engaged learning.

Our research addresses the following question:

How can assessment design and practices be shaped and/or enhanced to meet changing policy directions and workforce development needs?

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

1. How do different contexts (e.g. different institutional policy contexts or their purposes, including credentialing, discourses and practices) mediate assessment practices and decisions?

2. What are the current experiences of and challenges in assessment for learners, adult educators (AEs), providers and employers?

3. What features enable and/or hinder establishments and practitioners in adopting assessment practices for the changing nature of work?

In this report, we document our analysis of the six cases we looked into, as listed below:

 workplace learning facilitators  firefighting: rota commanders  cooks: menu-change training  resident doctors  aircraft engineers  IT network engineers

The rationale for the selection of the cases is in the methodology section of this report, and the case reports can be found on the IAL website. Analysing across the six cases enables us to identify common themes across the diverse learning and assessment practices evident in them. This analysis resulted in us developing the “six dimensions of assessment” that identify key features and values of assessment and their relationships. These dimensions are alignment, authenticity, judgement, feedback, holism and future-orientedness, and will be discussed in later chapters.

The remainder of the introductory chapter covers the rationale for this research project on assessment, explains the methodology used in the project, and provides definitions for some key terminology used in the report.

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