The Place of Student Assessment in Pursuing Employability
- Publisher:
- Brill Academic Publishers
- Publication Type:
- Chapter
- Citation:
- Education for Employability, 2019, 2, pp. 167-178
- Issue Date:
- 2019-08-05
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The chapter pursues these two themes. Firstly, the nature of assessment practices and how they foster or inhibit employability. Secondly, the ways in which assessment in the form of students’ achievements is communicated to others, including employers. This chapter explores these issues through a critique of common assessment practices and how achievements are documented and
communicated. It identifies new ways assessment is being practised that promote employability, and how graduates and indeed universities can represent what they can do in productive ways. It suggests that assessment needs considerable reform if it is to become fit for purpose in preparing students for life after graduation On the first theme, we explore what authentic assessment is and identify features of assessment that look forward. We argue that assessment is not about
preparing students for immediate employment, but to equip them to respond effectively to whatever situations they find themselves in, both in work and in life.
That is, how they can read the requirements of whatever it is that they are expected to do, respond effectively, monitor their own performance and plan the learning in
which they need to engage. It focuses on the need for sustainable assessments and the development of students’ evaluative judgement.
On the second theme, we examine assessment as portrayal and suggest that we need new forms of portrayal of student achievement that are more transparent and address the needs of the multiple audiences that consider them. The chapter explores representations of achievement that are more directly linked to the learning outcomes of a course than is often the case and which also involve students in a more active role in this portrayal. As an illustration of this it uses
digital portfolios which can be validated and curated by students to present themselves for different purposes and to different groups, and the notion of validated digital micro-credentials that portray distinctiveness in student outcomes. It is important to note that a focus on assessment for employability does not imply that this is the main function of assessment. Employability is used here as a shorthand for preparation for a world beyond the realm of educational institutions.
Assessment for employability describes how assessment in its many forms can equip students to operate effectively in a complex and ever-changing world in which new knowledge and skills will need continually to be acquired and developed in unpredictable contexts with a variety of other people. .
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