2. Preparing students for assessments Janet Strain Ann Jakeman
Welcome to this programme in which we look at preparing students for assessment. It is important that students are prepared for assessment so that they can perform as well as they can in the assessment. It is also important however, that teachers do not over prepare students for assessment as this could be viewed as malpractice. This programme will help teachers prepare their students for assessment successfully..

3. Workshop Objectives By the end of the workshop you will be able to
Adapt assessment preparation techniques to the type of assessment instruments being used and the assessment conditions that apply
Give reasonable assistance when preparing students without crossing the undue support line
Deliver appropriate assessment preparation activities when case studies are issued ahead of the assessment but the questions are unseen until the assessment event
It is important to adapt assessment preparation techniques. There are different types of assessment instruments used and the assessment conditions may vary.
You are allowed to provide reasonable assistance when preparing students without crossing the undue support line.
It is important to deliver appropriate assessment preparation activities when case studies are issued ahead of the assessment but the questions are unseen until the assessment event.

4. Why prepare students for assessment?
Students expect teachers to prepare them
Without it our the students would not pass
It is a requirement on the teaching timetable
It is good practice
Students need to be prepared to sit assessments.
Student expect teachers to prepare them for their assessments.
If students are not prepared to sit their assessments, they will not pass.
Usually, it is a requirement on the teaching timetable that teachers prepare their students for assessment.
It is good practice to provide formative (practice assessment) for students and to prepare them for their summative assessment.

5. An valuable opportunity for feedback Summative Assessment
Types of assessment
Formative Assessment
A measure of progress
An valuable opportunity for feedback
Summative Assessment
learning is assessed against a particular specification or standard to award a given qualification
There are two types of assessment for which teachers prepare their students
Formative Assessment is a practice assessment and can be any activity or exercise leading up to assessment. It is used as a measure of progress and provides you, the teacher, with a valuable opportunity to feedback to the student
Summative Assessment is the actual assessment where learning is assessed against a particular specification or standard to award a given qualification. For SQA qualifications, summative assessment is the Assessment Support Pack provided for each unit.

6. Types of assessment conditions
Open book
Controlled conditions
Time constrained conditions
Closed book
Always check the Unit Specification to read the current assessment conditions
There are different types of assessment conditions:
Open book – where the student completes the assessment, in their own time, with no limit on the resources available.
Controlled conditions – where the student completes the assessment in class time.
Time constrained conditions – where the assessment is completed within a timescale eg 2 hours.
Closed book – where the assessment is completed with no resources available.
The assessment conditions for each unit are contained in the Unit Specification and you should Always check the Unit Specification for the current assessment conditions.

7. What are the challenges when preparing students for assessment?
Students want to you to concentrate only on what is going to be covered in the assessment
Students have significant gaps in their understanding
Students are worried and are looking to you to solve all their pre assessment concerns
You feel under pressure to get good results even with a less good class
Over preparing students by sharing any details of an unseen assessment is malpractice and will have consequences for you and your students if identified by SQA
What are the challenges when preparing students for assessment?
Students want to you to concentrate only on what is going to be covered in the assessment
Students have significant gaps in their understanding
Students are worried and are looking to you to solve all their pre assessment concerns
You feel under pressure to get good results even with a less good class
Over preparing students by sharing any details of an unseen assessment is malpractice and will have consequences for you and your students if identified by SQA

8. Reasonable assistance
The fine line
Reasonable assistance
It is your responsibility to ensure that you do not cross the line between reasonable assistance and undue support when you are preparing your students for assessment.
Reasonable assistance can be defined as supporting your students to ensure that they succeed in their assessments.
Undue support can be defined as supporting your students TOO MUCH in order to ensure that they succeed in their assessments.
The following slides provide some scenarios about situations in which you might find yourself and what would be classed as reasonable assistance and undue support in each situation.
They also suggest how the challenges can be overcome.
For each of the scenarios you should pause the presentation and discuss with your colleagues your own experience of the scenario and how you dealt with it.
Undue support

9. What assistance can you give?
The student has to select a task for a practical activity or topic for a case study
Assessor input and advice on the selection of a task/topic is appropriate before the student actually embarks on the task, unless the Unit states the student has to select the task/topic without assistance.
Once work on the assessment has begun, then the student should be working more autonomously with less assistance.
The student has to select a task for a practical activity or topic for a case study
Assessor input and advice on the selection of a task/topic is appropriate before the student actually embarks on the task, unless the Unit states the student has to select the task/topic without assistance.
Once work on the assessment has begun, then the student should be working more autonomously with less assistance.

10. What assistance can you give?
The student asks for advice on additional sources that could be used when writing a project
If resources for an assessment are unavailable, it may be appropriate to discuss a series of options on alternative sources
Aim to do this by asking more questions that prompt the student to identify the additional sources
The student asks for advice on additional sources that could be used when writing a project
If resources for an assessment are unavailable, it may be appropriate to discuss a series of options on alternative sources
Aim to do this by asking more questions that prompt the student to identify the additional sources

11. What assistance can you give?
The student asks for a further explanation of what they have to do to answer part of the assessment because they do not understand the wording in the brief or specification
Clarification of assessment requirements can be given
Aim to do this by discussing the parameters but not giving the detail that could be seen as the solution
The student asks for a further explanation of what they have to do to answer part of the assessment because they do not understand the wording in the brief or specification
Clarification of assessment requirements can be given
Aim to do this by discussing the parameters but not giving the detail that could be seen as the solution

12. What assistance can you give?
The student asks for help to decide on options within a project (such as to develop solutions or reach conclusions)
Facilitation of a conversation to help the student reach the conclusion
Aim to do this by asking the student to discuss each option available and the pros and cons of each and then ask the student to decide on a solution based on the discussion. In this way you are not telling the candidate what to do but you are facilitating the thought process to enable them to work towards an appropriate choice.
The student asks for help to decide on options within a project (such as to develop solutions or reach conclusions)
Facilitation of a conversation to help the student reach the conclusion
Aim to do this by asking the student to discuss each option available and the pros and cons of each and then ask the student to decide on a solution based on the discussion. In this way you are not telling the candidate what to do but you are facilitating the thought process to enable them to work towards an appropriate choice.

13. What assistance can you give?
A student is working on a case study, which involves analysing and interpreting and making decisions on the information given. The candidate is having difficulty analysing the information in the case study.
You cannot give the answer
You can refer the student back to a previous part of the learning programme or student learning guide which covered relevant material or skills that would help in the analysis.
A student is working on a case study, which involves analysing and interpreting and making decisions on the information given. The candidate is having difficulty analysing the information in the case study.
You cannot give the answer
You can refer the student back to a previous part of the learning programme or student learning guide which covered relevant material or skills that would help in the analysis.

14. What assistance can you give?
A student is stuck on a task and cannot complete it – for example they cannot work out the next step
You can give broad guidance
You can assist by raising other questions that make the students think about the original problem, so giving them the opportunity to answer their own questions without supplying the actual answers.
A student is stuck on a task and cannot complete it – for example they cannot work out the next step
You can give broad guidance
You can assist by raising other questions that make the students think about the original problem, so giving them the opportunity to answer their own questions without supplying the actual answers.

15. When the assessment is an examination
Cover all the Unit Specification in revision activities
Do NOT concentrate on the questions being asked – that is malpractice
Do give the students answer writing practice on a range of topics
Some Units are assessed by an examination.
It is important to cover the unit specification in revision activities. It is important to remember that examination preparation should be built around REVISING the unit specification topics and providing the students with exam techniques.
Concentrating only on the topics and questions that are in the examination is malpractice and will have consequences for the Centre
You should always aim to provide students with practice in writing answers on a range of topics.

16. Examination Preparation
Graded Unit examinations are based on certain units
Check Unit Specification for units contributing to Graded Unit examinations
Ensure that those units are delivered in the same year that the Graded Unit examination is being delivered
Graded Unit examinations are based on certain units.
Check Unit Specification for units contributing to Graded Unit examinations. This will also give an indication of the topics in the examination.
It is important that the units contributing to the graded unit are delivered in the same year that the Graded Unit examination is being delivered. It is also important that the majority of the unit is complete before Graded Unit preparation starts. Examination preparation can begin with the correct scheduling of units.

17. Examination Preparation
Revise a topic each session
Students should be asked to bring their notes for that topic
Students should be asked to extract main points from topic
You can provide them with practice questions/discussion topics/case studies
There are various teaching methods available for preparing students for examination. It should be remembered that any exam preparation should be student centred – it is the student who will be sitting the examination so we must test their knowledge and encourage them to revise BEFORE the exam.
Bearing in mind that the topics will have been covered in the particular unit, each timetabled graded unit class should be a revision session for the student. Start by choosing a topic – such as economics – and ask the students to bring their notes for that topic to the graded unit class. The students should then be asked to extract main points from the topic.
You can provided them with practice questions/discussion topics/case studies – you must ensure that these are only practice and do not relate to the actual questions in the exam itself.

18. Examination Preparation
Create practice questions – ask students to complete one question as a practice (use self assessment questions in Student Learning Guides)
Explain what the command word means in the question – evaluate, explain etc and what they need to do to meet the command word
You can create a bank of practice questions and ask the students to complete one question as a practice. You can use self assessment questions in the Student Learning Guides as a basis for the practice questions.
You can explain to the students what the command word means in the question – evaluate, explain etc and what they need to do to meet the command word We cannot expect a student to “evaluate” in an exam question, if they do not know what they need to do to meet that command word.

19. Examination preparation
Explain timings to students
3 hour exam questions
180 / 5 = 36
Read all questions – 10 minutes
30 minutes to answer one question
10 minutes to read at end OR
100 mark assessment = 180 minutes
Allow 1.5 minutes per mark
You can explain exam timings to students e.g. If there is a 3 hour exam and the student has to answer 5 questions.
They student has 180 minutes to answer 5 questions which is 36 minutes each. You should instruct the students to read all questions. That will take them 10 minutes.
They then spend 30 minutes on each question which leaves 10 minutes at the end to read over their responses.
OR an alternative timing for students is if they have 100 marks available in 180 minutes then they should be aiming to write for 1.5 minutes for a mark.

20. Remind students to decide the order they are going to answer questions – best questions first
Remind students to decide the order they are going to answer questions – best questions first. For example the student has to answer 4 out of 5 questions. Advise them to start with their best question. This means that they could answer the questions in order of 4, 5, 3, 1.

21. When the assessment is open book
Encourage the students to think of the sources to bring in
Give plenty practice opportunities to help the students identify how much material they should bring in
Unless stated in the Unit Specification do not tell the students what book(s) to bring in
When the assessment is open book you can encourage the students to think of the sources to bring in but you cannot tell them what resources to bring in.
Give plenty practice opportunities to help the students identify how much material they should bring in.
Unless stated in the Unit Specification do not tell the students what book(s) to bring in.

22. Case Studies You can ask the students what the key facts are
Age of customers
Financial position
Marketing position
Current economic conditions
Job situation
Current barriers/opportunities
BUT IT IS MALPRACTICE IF YOU GUIDE THEM TO ASSESS THE POSITION OR LEAD DISCUSSIONS ON PROBABLE QUESTIONS
When the assessment is a case study, whether seen or unseen, you can ask the students to identify key facts such as:
Age of customers
Financial position
Marketing position
Current economic conditions
Job situation
Current barriers/opportunities
You cannot lead discussions on probable questions or start to assess the position within the case study. – this is malpractice.
So you can give guidance to the students on the areas they should be looking at but you cannot give any indication of the questions.

23. Case Studies
Any notes prepared by the students MUST be their own work You cannot guide the preparations of these notes Giving students a list of headings to include in their notes is malpractice
Some assessments allow the students to have notes with them. Any notes prepared by the students must be their own work. You cannot guide the preparations of these notes. Giving students a list of their headings to include in their notes is malpractice.

24. Workshop Objectives By the end of the workshop you will be able to
Adapt assessment preparation techniques to the type of assessment instruments being used and the assessment conditions that apply
Give reasonable assistance when preparing students without crossing the undue support line
Deliver appropriate assessment preparation activities when case studies are issued ahead of the assessment but the questions are unseen until the assessment event