In this chapter the authors compare assessment techniques in education and health. These examples are drawn from assessment for learning in secondary school as compared with assessment of functioning in care of older people. Content in these respective assessment environments is obviously quite different, but there is some overlap, in particular related to social circumstances. The authors further argue that the assessment structure and formal analysis techniques are and even should be quite similar. These two domains of assessments share not only a common information and terminological structure, but also a common assessment framework (CAF) which is shown to be extendable by process detail. In this focus on assessment in health, particularly in active and healthy ageing, the model is intended to support the integration of information and processes (decision and intervention pathways) supporting various types of providers.
TopIntroduction
The common assessment framework1 (CAF) is more ‘common’ as a general overview than a real 'framework' for integrating information and process structures. It is used in many European countries and regions for “self-assessment” to improve public organizations in particular in public administration like education and health. Even if called a ‘framework’ and supposed to include assessment scales and similar quantifications and qualifications, CAF per se does not embrace any formal or methodological approaches to formal process based framework or information structure and terminology based assessment. Therefore, as a candidate for complying with an ontology or, more formally and computationally, a namespace of information, CAF is structurally shallow.
Basically, CAF is a framework torso without any specific assessment scales or structures to enable organization of data information into a framework a logically full-bodied namespace.
Figure 1.
Overview of the CAF model
In this chapter we provide CAF with an enrichment where we view information and process as part of the framework, so that assessment can be structurally formalized within such a syntactically well-developed framework.
In our focus on assessment in education, with particular views on assessment of learning, our model is intended, on the one hand, to support curriculum task forces within national boards of education, and, on the other hand, to provide assessment framework toolsets in order to support curriculum regional task forces in municipalities, thus ultimately supporting curriculum planning workgroups as well as teachers and teams as education providers.
In education, perception and performance are expected to be observed and assessed within modules of particular syllabi of courses. In active and healthy ageing, assessment of functioning plays an important role. These modules are processes within which tokens and data objects carry data and information, in the end appearing in assessment scales and further used in overall quality assurance. These processes are further integrated as subprocesses in a general process in education and health, including feedback loops representing quality assurance on all levels from national education curricula and care guidelines through municipal and regional adaptations, all the way down to specific education syllabi and care practices as specified in detail for and within particular schools and points of care.
In our focus on assessment in health, we present particular detail within assessment in active and healthy ageing as personalized as well as population based. Personalized assessment relates to monitoring of functioning and health conditions of an individual as a basis for arriving at suitable prevention and intervention. Information structure and related ontology is then important basis within a Common Assessment Framework for Active and Healthy Ageing (CAFAHA) as a methodology and information structure for personalized health assessment.
TopAssessment In Education
‘Educational assessment’ refers to the set of methods and processes by which evidence about student learning is designed, collected, scored, analysed, and interpreted. (Brown, 2017)
We may view assessment scales for teaching and learning as related to performance and capabilities, and as based on scaling instruments respectively for Activity, Skill, Inclusion, Attitude and Cerebration. Activity subdivides into social and individual activity. Attitude is individual, whereas inclusion is a social aspect. Cerebration relates to mental and cognitive capacity, and is further related with intellection and mentation. Circumstance and health are more of environmental factors, and family situations often interact with other subareas of assessment.
Figure 2. Grouping of factors appearing in assessment of learning (Eklund et al, 2014)