Assessments are the means by which the standards of the award and the requirements of TETB programme are demonstrated. The assessments given to learners should provide sufficient opportunity for a learner to generate evidence that demonstrates the achievement of those standards. Additionally, the assessments must be fair and consistent across all assessment activities for all learners.

Devising Assessments – Staff Training

In order to support new assessors in the assessment design process, PD opportunities are available annually via the staff  in the QA Offices and the Further Education Support Service’s (FESS) calendar of PD events. New assessors are also provided with various support within their own centre eg buddy system, mentoring, peer review etc.

TETB assessors can also access the TETB-created resource Devising Assessment Instruments: Guidelines for Assessors on the QA Sharepoint space. This guide explains the process for devising assessment instruments for QQI certification, with references to the award and programme standards, steps and tips for writing assessments,  samples of the template instruments to be used and finally samples of completed assessments.

Devising Assessments – Use of Standardised Assessment Instruments

All learners are presented with an Assessment Brief which communicates the instructions, requirements and/or expectations of non-examination assessment tasks. The format of the assessment brief has been standardised across TETB to ensure consistency of presentation to learners and to provide a guide for layout to teachers/tutors.

Devising Assessments – Process for Developing Assessments

For further education programmes, assessment briefs are locally devised whereas assessment briefs for training programmes are centrally devised.

The process used in the development of assessment instruments for training programmes is described in the following procedure: Developing Assessment Instruments (for use in TS programmes)