4.2.4 Holism

p. 75). Here, learner engagement with the assessment task, scenario and/or process is emphasised and taken into consideration as an indicator of authenticity (Herrington et al., 2002, pp. 2–3).

Therefore, our findings support the notion of authenticity as extending beyond “real work”: the interactions with others and the settings in which tasks take place need to capture the dynamics of the situations that learners are being prepared for. They highlight factors like situatedness, community and participation, which ought to be considered in the design and implementation of assessment for authenticity. Our findings also show that, depending on the nature of work and type of learning situation involved (e.g. workplace learning, aircraft engineering and doctor residency programmes), writing reports and reflection journals, reading, and discussion are important processes in the learners’ discovery, exploration, expression and self-formation.

4.2.4 Holism

Holism aims to engender the wider ethics and values of the profession and/or occupation, integrating knowledge, skills and experience that in practice reject easy dichotomies like theory–practice, knowledge–skills, mind–body and understanding–applying. Cases like the learning of new dishes in the F&B menu-change training requires cooks to follow recipes, comply with food safety regulations and restaurants’ requirements, and to ascertain and distinguish sensorial qualities of aesthetic and taste. Here, “integratedness” suggests the inseparability of learning from the learner and that which is learned, or the connectedness between doing, thinking and being. It takes into account learning as a more personal and holistic process.

Our findings show that learning and the nature of knowledge (or know-how) in most professions, ranging from cooking to fire-fighting, are embodied rather than distinct or easily separable. As a cook, firefighter or engineer, much of the knowing is demonstrated in the doing, and involves being able to put things together, solving problems, working with complexity and developing/cultivating capacities like awareness, responsiveness and fortitude. The integratedness of learning and know-how suggests that assessment should be designed holistically. Yet the design of assessment is still premised on “traditional” dichotomies of mind–body, knowledge–skills and theory–practice.

Our findings support the notion of learning as not just about acquisition of knowledge and skills, and assessment as the measurement and/or testing of this acquisition, but internalisation of the ethos and values of the profession. For example, thinking and acting like a rota commander in the rota commander course demands fundamental changes in dispositions towards danger and emergency situations, including alertness and responsiveness. It also highlights the learning of “leadership” as an embodied process enabled through observation, participation and practice, and developed over time with experience. The internalisation of ethos and values of the profession, or the mastery of know-how like “command and control” of a team during an emergency, could only be achieved over time and through meaningful engagement in work beyond the immediate course, and this mastery is also beyond a matter of technical proficiency, which often includes and embeds qualities like alertness, responsiveness and perseverance.

The F&B menu-change training illustrates “taste” as a form of knowing that is cultivated through embodied learning. Taste cannot be boiled down to categories of skill and knowledge, and its learning cannot be easily distinguishable from the learner and that which is learned. Because taste is embodied and requires learners to be able to discern for and by themselves, holistic assessment of taste, for example, aims to help learners develop judgement and foster a better understanding of what is required by making explicit and visible what those components of taste are and enhancing clarity on what those standards of taste are, and to help learners to “draw on whatever they need to continue learning

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