Claus Westergård Elmholdt

Assessment In Practice: An inspiration from apprenticeship

The paper investigates the relationship between assessment and learning through an empirical study of apprenticeship training. The paper suggests that well‐established modes of learning, which facilitate meaningful assessment in apprenticeship training, present an “antidote” to a traditional emphasis on assessment as selection and control. In contrast to rejection of apprenticeship modes of assessment as being inappropriate and obsolete at the present time, the paper suggests that the concept of apprenticeship assessment can be seen as a highly attractive and effective alternative to current assessment practices in both schools and workplaces. Taking a situated and relational perspective on knowledge and learning, we argue that assessment practices should focus on contextually‐anchored reviews of the core competencies of the person. This contextual assessment contrasts with an emphasis on assessment as essentially controlling and selecting students for further education and, on the other hand, with assessment as a process of self‐monitoring and self‐reflection.

Learning trajectories among educational psychologists

In this article, special attention is paid to psychologists’ experiences of learning trajectories in educational counseling. The data consists of two case studies. They were selected from a total of 15 interviews with psychologists conducted as part of a research project on ‘Changing Practices in Educational Psychological Practice (CPEPP) in Denmark’. The article analyses learning trajectories along what we refer to as the clinical versus the educational track in educational psychological practice. Learning trajectories are examples of how individuals combine and connect learning across both time and different places of work, formal education and further education. The clinical and the educational learning trajectories are analysed in relation to the psychologists’ previous educational and present work experience within a context of very substantial organizational change. A general theme of the article is therefore that learning should be analysed over (1) time, past–present–future over the course of a persons life; and (2) place, across contexts of activity and communities of practice with different and overlapping goals, values and rules. In this respect continued learning entails negotiating and coming to terms with a professional identity across time and space.

Learning good leadership: a matter of assessment?

In this paper, we analyse the performativity of assessment tools used for measuring the learning effects of a leadership development programme. The paper is based on an empirical study of a leadership development programme, ‘Start to Lead’, in a global organization. Through our empirical analysis, we infer two modes of ordering, which illustrate how the assessment tool produced diverse performative effects across different practices. Our findings indicate a gap between the participants’ interview-based descriptions of what they learned from the programme and the assessment tool’s operationalization of ‘the right’ leadership knowledge. We also found that managers seemed to distinguish between assessment important to the managers themselves and their daily work, which they were highly motivated to do well, and assessment important to ‘the organizational system’, which mostly resulted in quickly ‘ticking boxes’. These findings suggest that assessment tools work as demarcations defining good leadership and legitimate learning. These demarcations risk being disconnected from the everyday practice of leadership and hence risk decoupling the assessment tool and the participants’ everyday leadership practice. We end the paper by discussing the theoretical implications of this analysis.

Innovative Learning is Not Enough

Major transformations have occurred in work and organization of work since the advent of what is called the post-industrial society (Bell, 1973), and more recently the innovation economy (Saperstein et al., 2002). These transformations have obviously influenced the conditions of workplace learning. The physical exertion, manual dexterity, and endurance of industrial work have been increasingly displaced by knowledge work that requires attentiveness and the ability to analyze problems and make decisions (Stehr, 1994). A fundamental characteristic of the new innovative economy is a market-driven demand for flexibility and change that has put (innovative) learning high on the agenda. Workers must be willing to and able to engage in lifelong learning — flexibility has become a core requirement of workers (Sennett, 1998).

Eklekticisme og erhvervsuddannelses-pædagogik — styring, tendens eller tilfældighed?

Undervisningsministeriet sætter sit præg på dansk erhvervsuddannelse, EUD, på to måder. For det første ved – på det formelle plan – at udforme lovgrundlaget for dansk EUD primært i form af uddannelsesbekendtgørelser samt bemærkninger til lovforslag. For det andet ved – på det uformelle plan – at udgive en temahæfteserie1 tænkt som inspiration og værktøjer for erhvervsskoler, lærere, ledere og andre involveret i EUD. Artiklen vil sætte fokus på den uformelle præsentation gennem temahæfteserien og på, hvorvidt disse hæfter implicit er fortaler for eklekticisme. Eklektisk kommer af det græske ‘eklektikos’ (fra ‘eklegein’, at udvælge) og referer almindeligvis til en udvælgelse af forskellige elementer, teorier, metoder, retninger, doktriner, stilarter etc. For at kunne analysere Undervisningsministeriers indflydelse over EUD-pædagogik på det uformelle plan vil vi indledningsvist berøre det formelle plan (lovgrundlaget) og diskutere begrebet ‘Governmentality’, der kan oversættes ved styringsmentalitet, som ramme for en analyse af formel og uformel styring af EUD-pædagogikken.