Who can assess?

There are 4 categories of people who could be involved in assessing individuals learning: tutors; learners; learners’ peers; external assessors.

We require recognised centres to assure us that staff assessing learning have qualifications which comply with legislative requirements or the requirements of appropriate organisations which might fund, inspect the quality of provision or impose requirements linked to an award. These organisations might include:

How to Assess

Tutors need to be very clear about what will be assessed within the course.  All units are written in terms of Learning Outcomes – what the learner will be expected to know, or do, or understand.  ALL Assessment Criteria in each Learning Outcome must be achieved, observed, assessed and recorded.  Although ALL learning outcomes must be assessed ONE task may assess several different Learning Outcomes at once.

e.g. within a conversational languages unit a group of assessment criteria could be assessed by a role play exercise:

Each learning outcome has assessment criteria, which define the level of achievement, which the learner can demonstrate.  So units at different levels may have the same or very similar learning outcomes but with assessment criteria that may be significantly different for each level.

(QCF Level Descriptors )

Both the learners and tutors should be involved in the assessment process.  It is important that learners are aware of the planned learning outcomes and assessment criteria.  It is good practice to share these with learners verbally and visually (handouts, flipcharts etc.).