How to best assess students' learning in work placements: moving beyond current practice

Abstract

This paper addresses the question: how should work undertaken by undergraduate planning students in formal work placements be academically assessed? For example, should assessment focus on the ability to perform typical professional workplace tasks, the student’s capacity to exercise judgement in the professional workplace, or the ability to reflect critically on the experience of practice? Urban and regional planning is a professional activity where the education of planners often, but not always, involves a work placement of some kind. We investigate current practices and the key stakeholders’ perspectives on assessment and assessment standards in work-based planning education in Australia. Our findings help inform some of these debates and our discussions point to some possible resolution of the dilemmas posed. We argue that there is a need to extend beyond the dominant forms of assessment that are currently used in work-placed-based planning education in Australia if we are to improve on current assessment practices and to reconcile tensions between the requirements and perception of the key stakeholders involved: namely the planning academics, students and supervising practitioners.