The current literature on assessment promotes viewing it as an ongoing process of collecting and triangulating information with a focus on supporting and incentivizing optimal student learning. This represents an ontological and epistemological shift, from seeing competence as something that should be objectively measured to seeing competence as something that requires a fair and defensible narrative.
Although this may seem philosophical and perhaps 'soft’, the practical implications and implementation lead to assessment programs which are demanding and require the learner to constantly strive to become the best professional they can be. This drive is best represented in the principal of assessment for learning.
A fundamental difference between formative assessment and assessment for learning is, therefore, that formative assessment focuses on the provision of feedback (and it is left to learner what they want to do with that feedback) whereas assessment for learning focuses on the uptake and effective use of the feedback. This means that assessment for learning and programmatic assessment are not specific methods – or even ideologies – but are a combination of a set of principles.
So, although I present from the viewpoint of health professions education, I am sure these principles are not unique to health professions education and have been or can be applied in many other educational domains.
Lambert Schuwirth is a test expert and Australian Professor of Medical Education.
