Shared Approach to Performance Assessment: Final Report on the Demonstration Projects

Abstract

The aim of the overall project is:- To explore and document the ways in which professionals from disciplines other than social work can contribute to the performance assessment of social work students. It was agreed by the project team that we should also be exploring the converse of this, where other professionals may be less able to contribute to the shared assessment. The earlier practice audit and literature review, available on the Institute website, identified a number of themes that have formed the backdrop for the demonstration projects. These included:- • Shared assessment already takes place on social work courses, for example law and social sciences, and that in itself is not contentious. • There is a difference between sharing subject teaching and learning for collaborative practice. • The literature shows that to date, the preoccupation of educators has been with the what and how of teaching, as opposed to assessment. • Shared learning and assessment took place in a range of forms and sizes. As a general rule the larger the student groups the more complex the planning and management. However, small scale examples showed that successful outcomes could be achieved for less work. • Assessments ranged from the traditional essay and case studies to presentations and community profiling. • More was known about University based units and very little about assessment on practice placements. Therefore, we needed to focus on the following question in the demonstrations: What is complicated and contentious about shared assessment?