Key Points to Remember When Assessing Students

Plan for feedback and assessment

• Ensure you are familiar with the University requirements for assessment
• Complete any training to complete the assessment form
• If there are multiple Clinical Educators, designate a primary assessor who will coordinate the student’s assessment
• Timetable the mid and end of placement assessment at the beginning of the placement

Prepare the student

• At the beginning of the placement, explain the purpose of the assessment
• Check that the student understands the assessment form and that there will be a midway and end of assessment process
• Talk about the ways in which you will assess their performance and their move towards competency
• Clearly discuss the ways in which you expect the student to participate in the assessment process
• Discuss how you are going to give feedback

Collect evidence of the student’s performance to support your assessment decisions

Use multiple sources of evidence.

• feedback to student (e.g. carbon copy of observations)
• case notes
• reports
• feedback from other professionals
• structured activities or set tasks

Give feedback and devise strategies

• Encourage and allow students time to self reflect
• Use the self reflection to guide feedback
• Work with the student to identify gaps and devise strategies to meet these learning goals
• Refer the student to their learning contract and regularly revise the plan

Provide opportunities and make evidence based decisions

• Provide the student with opportunities to meet their learning goals
• Ensure evidence is collected for each criteria (where possible, if you don’t have enough evidence to grade the student then do not grade it)
• Make a decision based on the evidence
• Use the evidence to explain the grade to the student

Reflect and evaluate

• Reflect on the assessment process and the feedback session (e.g. did you allow enough time, was the student’s self-assessment similar to your gradings?)
• What worked well?
• What could you change for next time?

(Griffith University Clinical Education Resource Manual, School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science, 2012)

References

Griffith University Clinical Education Resource Manual, (2012). School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science, Griffith University.