Assessing 'competence': Definitions, challenges and strategies

Assessing 'competence': Definitions, challenges and strategies woman attending webinar
Date: 14 Jan 2025 - 28 Jan 2025 Venue: Online
Time: 12:30 - 14:00
Type: Workshop series Fee: £265 (Members - £238.50)

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Bookings close 13 January 2025 at 11am (UK time)

This workshop series is accredited with a Certificate of Attendance for continuing professional development (4.5 CPD hours). To be eligible, two live sessions must be attended.

Assessing competence and skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration are high on the agenda for educators, employers, and policymakers looking to reimagine an education system fit for the future.

This interactive series of three workshops is designed for anyone who wants to understand the key issues underpinning valid assessments of competence and is ideal for practitioners who are looking to embed 'competence', 'competencies' or '21st century skills' into their teaching, learning or assessment approaches.

As assessment and education specialists, we have a duty to keep up to date with educational research and developments to ensure our practice remains fit for purpose for students in different contexts. These workshops focus on key concepts, investigating a range of educational settings and systems, to ensure our teaching and assessment remains relevant and constructive for all stakeholders.”
Margaret Cooze, Educational Assessment Consultant and course trainer

Workshop dates

Week 1 14 Jan 2025 | 12:30 - 14:00 (UK time) Title:  Workshop 1
Week 2 21 Jan 2025 | 12:30 - 14:00 (UK time) Title:  Workshop 2
Week 3 28 Jan 2025 | 12:30 - 14:00 (UK time) Title:  Workshop 3

Course outline

This series of three workshops will introduce the concept of ‘competence’ as it is used in education and explore some of the approaches to assessing it.

  • Workshop 1 – We will explore how ‘competence’ is defined and its relationship to twenty-first century and transversal skills. We will consider its use in education and how effective ‘competence frameworks’ can be constructed.
  • Workshop 2 – We will consider the validity, reliability and fairness challenges that assessing competence can bring and explore these through case studies.
  • Workshop 3 – We will explore different approaches that can be used to assess competence with a particular focus on assessment design, marking, grading and quality assurance. We will wrap up our three-week programme through a consideration of some common features found in current approaches to competence assessment and a summary of the key challenges to navigate.

Key learning outcomes

By the end of the three sessions you will have:

  • Gained an understanding of how competence is defined in the context of educational assessment
  • Considered how competence frameworks can be effectively developed to support valid and reliable assessment
  • Explored a range of different approaches to assessing ‘competence’ and 21st century skills, drawing upon real world examples to consider what might work in your own practice
  • Understood the issues related to validity, reliability, fairness and practicality in assessments that seek to assess competence
  • Considered some common features of current approaches to competence assessment and key challenges to navigate.

Course trainer

Margaret Cooze Margaret Cooze is a freelance language and assessment specialist. She holds an MA in Applied Linguistics and an MSc in English Language Teaching Management. She has taught in Guatemala, Japan and the UK with a particular interest in the teaching and assessment of writing. 

Margaret has also worked for Cambridge Assessment managing the production of a range of assessments for language learners and teachers. She has also led on assessment reviews, benchmarking and comparability studies as well as supporting awarding bodies in gaining recognition for their assessments. 

She is now involved in the design, development and production of assessment materials as well acting as moderator and Principal Examiner for English assessments for Cambridge International. Alongside this, Margaret has recently written for Cambridge University Press and also designs and delivers training on the principles of assessment, question paper content writing, the operational aspects of assessment systems and also language awareness for teachers with recent work in Sweden, Lesotho, Pakistan, Botswana, Eswatini, The Bahamas and Vietnam.

 

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