Ecology, Identity and Assessment: The Implications of a Case Study of Police Students Learning in Community Placements for Assessment
المؤلف:
Catherine Layton
المصدر:
Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Assessment
الجزء والصفحة:
P338-C29
2025-08-01
337
Ecology, Identity and Assessment: The Implications of a Case Study of Police Students' Learning in Community Placements for Assessment
Reflective practice is often cited as the goal of work placements. I consider the outcomes of a study of New South Wales policing students' learning in community placements (Layton, 2004), which had, as its stimulus, comments that the academics involved could see that students were learning, but it was not through reflection. The required work included activities and reflections based on readings and personal experiences (current and autobiographical) as well as a daily log of activities. Examination of the students' reflective tasks showed that this work rarely connected theoretical readings to their experiences, but that shifts in attitudes, actions, feelings, beliefs and thoughts could be tracked in the daily logs of events. So, too, could events that were likely to limit reflection, such as highly stressful or complex situations, even though they changed students' understandings. If reflective activities in isolation fail to capture learning, and tracking events and experiences can capture tacit learning that changes practice, feelings, beliefs and understanding, how do we best go about assessing students' learning in the world of practice? We consider just one aspect of a larger study focused on the impact upon selves and self-positioning of being in new or novel circumstances.
In terms of assessment, portfolios have been suggested as the way to best demonstrate breadth and depth of learning and to build in reflection on that learning. The focus is not necessarily on the ways in which students encounter and deal with problematic experiences as they occur, and the contexts and interactions upon which they are built are not necessarily recognized as having a key role to play. An alternative approach is to conceptualize the placement as an action learning project: this inevitably draws people in the placement into the action. This re-conceptualization would have the added strength of recognizing the inevitable uncertainties of practice for each individual.
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