Reliable and objective assessment

Watch this video of a practice assessment being conducted by an assessor with a student.

• How do you think the situation made the assessor feel?
• What do you think the assessor did well?
• What do you think the assessor could have improved upon?
• What would you do differently?

When faced with a such a challenging situation there is a temptation to give the student the benefit of the doubt, even when you know that a student should be failed in practice.

Failure to fail is increasingly recognised as a major issue in practice-based education within health and social care educational programmes.

Failure rates for theory outstripped practice by a ratio of 5:1 in 27 of 52 universities who responded to a study (Hunt et al, 2011).

These findings reflect Duffy’s (2003) and Luhanga et al (2008) studies and others with regard to nursing students (see 'Recommended reading' in the left-hand menu).

In order to prevent ‘failure-to-fail’ scenarios four questions can enable an assessor to be more confident in their decision-making:

1. Would I let this student look after me, one of my closest relatives or friends?
2. Is it me that has failed, or the student?
3. Has this student failed ‘by their own hand’?
4. Will the university value my decision?

Link Lecturers and NHS Trust Practice Education Teams recognise that:

• Assessing students can be turbulent
• Assessing students can be stressful
• It is sometimes difficult to know or put into words when and why a student has failed – professional values and behaviours (Fitzgerald et al, 2009)

We can:

• Help you unpack ‘gut’ feelings with regard to an assessment
• Help you articulate your decision
• Draw on our own expertise in assessment