The pivotal role of student assessment in work-integrated learning

Boud, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6883-2722, Costley, Carol ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7996-8908, Cranfield, Steven, Desai, Jeenal, Nikolou-Walker, Elda, Nottingham, Paula ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3471-8446 and Wilson, Dilys (2022) The pivotal role of student assessment in work-integrated learning. Higher Education Research and Development . ISSN 0729-4360 [Article] (Published online first) (doi:10.1080/07294360.2022.2152981)

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Abstract

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is proliferating in university courses across many countries. Like many educational practices, students’ experience of it is shaped by the assessment processes adopted. Does assessment support or inhibit what WIL seeks to foster? To explore how students experience assessment in WIL, a small-scale investigation was undertaken across faculties in a UK university. Students who had recently undertaken WIL in contexts where it was either tightly coupled or loosely coupled to their programme of study undertook a drawing-stimulated interview about their placement and the role of assessment within it. A thematic analysis was used to discern key themes in student responses. Key issues identified were the importance of assessment in scaffolding learning, the multiple roles of university and workplace staff in assessment, the extent to which assessment practices promote students seeing themselves as becoming practitioners and the reflexive effects of assessment on learning. The paper discusses the implications of these issues for the design of WIL activities.

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