Developing student competence relevant to real-world practice has been a persistent challenge in tertiary education. Organisational psychologists use assessment centres in industry to measure job-relevant competencies of employees or job-candidates to facilitate accurate recruitment or development decisions. Despite its potential as an innovative…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the skills, knowledge, and experiences differentiating expert and competent strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches. Method: The participants were 87 elite-level head S&C coaches with an average of over 18 years of coaching experience. These coaches were employed by teams from the MLB,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight both the need for measurement of graduate capabilities post-degree completion and the challenges posed by such a task. Higher education institutions provide an important site of learning that can equip future professionals with capabilities to manage and respond to complex sustainability…

In chemistry curricula, both the role of the laboratory program and the method of assessment used are subject to scrutiny and debate. The ability to identify clearly defined competencies for the chemistry laboratory program is crucial, given the numerous other disciplines that rely on foundation-level chemistry knowledge and practical skills. In…

MICROBOL -- Micro-credentials linked to the Bologna Key Commitments -- is a two-year project co-funded by Erasmus+ KA3 Support to Policy reform, and more specifically "Support to the implementation of EHEA [European Higher Education Area] reforms". It is linked to the aims of the new Erasmus+ Programme and the EHEA to increase access to…

Internationally, the political appetite for educational measurement capable of capturing a metric of value for money and effectiveness has momentum. While most would agree with the need to assess costs relevant to quality to help support better governmental policy decisions about public spending, poorly understood measurement comes with unintended…

There has been a major shift in educational learning goals--as seen most recently by Goal 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals--focused on global citizenship education and education for sustainable development. The shift concerns recognition of the need for education systems to equip learners with competencies such as problem solving,…

Musicians are appointed to positions in professional symphony orchestras--both rank and file and section principals--following a blind audition process. They perform set repertoire works and orchestral excerpts behind a screen. In many higher education programs, musicians focus on learning the orchestral excerpts and instrumental repertoire that…

This article describes the responsive evaluation component of an educational leadership capacity-building initiative developed at one Australian university and implemented by three others. The project aimed to develop, implement and disseminate an innovative framework to address the national strategic goal to increase the pool of qualified…

Industry placements are popular means to provide students with an opportunity to apply their skills, knowledge and experience in a "real world" setting. Within this context, supervisor feedback allows educators to measure students' performance beyond academic objectives, by benchmarking it against industry expectations. However, industry…

Work placements as a form of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) are widely recognised for the positive impact they have on improving the employability and work readiness of students. Assessment Centres (ACs) are typically used in corporate settings for recruitment, selection and more recently to provide developmental feedback to participants. The…

In this paper, we discuss ongoing challenges in defining and assessing generic competencies in Australian universities. The paper begins with a discussion of factors that led to, and later fuelled, the focus on generic competencies in Australian higher education. Broad constructs that have underpinned research and practice in the field are then…

Experiential placements are increasingly recognised as an essential component of university programmes, providing students with real-world contexts to apply their knowledge and to develop practical skills and personal attributes. In Australia, professions such as pharmacy have traditionally developed experiential placement programmes within state…

This paper examines the use of development centre methodology to measure the gap in performance for fieldwork staff in a social welfare organisation. The process follows the construction of a capability framework, a set of work-based simulations for participants and the use of a 360-degree instrument. These processes are combined to measure and…

This paper specifically reports on a comprehensive evaluation of competency based assessment within the mining industry in Queensland, Australia. However, it also addresses a broader problem associated with competency-based assessment already identified in the literature. The qualitative component of the study involved 83 people, nineteen mine…