The Types of Risks that may be Involved in own Area of Responsibility

Health and safety:

• The health and safety of my students have to be planned for in units involving laboratory or practical assessments. This is to prevent any minor or major injuries to the students. For example, in my HNC unit 3, one of the summative assessments involves students carrying out concrete and brick compression tests in the laboratory. To ensure, their safety, I must plan the activities to reduce the risk associated with the construction activities.

Unfairness to the learner:

• It is important to have the same assessment feedback standard/process that is free from bias or prejudice. Tutors may show favouritism to students who contribute well in their classes and bias to slow learners or learners with additional learning needs. This may cloud their judgment when providing feedback on summative assessments or when grading the assessment. Tutors must ensure they understand the needs of the students in their classes and match their needs with the appropriate teaching and assessment methods.

Inauthentic evidence:

• The integrity of the evidence provided by the students must be ascertained. This ensures that students are not submitting other people’s work as their own. For example, EAL students may sometimes obtain information from the internet without rephrasing in their own words and referencing the sources because of the difficulty of expressing themselves in the English language. Also, for example, mathematical modules may need to be assessed via in-person tests or examinations, rather than given a written assignment. This would ensure the integrity of the assessments.

Too much stress on the learner:

• Tutors must ensure that students are not over-assessed in their units. Inputs from the students may be sorted with regard to the extent of time needed to complete summative assessments. My experiences have revealed that multiple summative assessments from different tutors may be given to the students at the same time, thus causing them stress. These part-time mature students, who attend college once a week, have huge workloads from their full-time employment and are under strain from their families. It is important that tutors put this into consideration when developing the formative and summative assessments for their units.

Reference/Bibliography

Akubuilo, F. (2012) ‘Holistic assessment of student’s learning outcome’, Journal of Education and Practice, 3(12), pp. 56 – 60.

Davies, A. and Stiling, L. (2021) TAQA – training assessment and quality assurance [PowerPoint presentation]. 22 October.

Gravells, A. (2014) Achieving your assessment & quality assurance units (TAQA). 2nd edn. London: Learning Matters SAGE.

The College of Social Work (2012) Understanding what is meant by holistic assessment. Available at: https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/Document-library/holistic-assessmentASYE1.pdf (Accessed: 11 November 2021).