Four principles of good assessment practice: A teaching and learning approach to designing and assessing student work

Assessment is central to student learning in social work education. In professionally accredited programs such as social work, assessment must address professional standards in relation to curriculum and student outcomes. Thus, considered attention to the way assessments function is an important part of academic work and curriculum design. This paper reports on the results of a sub-set of a larger curriculum project, in which the authors undertook a comprehensive assessment mapping of a social work curriculum in an Australian university. The paper here focuses specifically on the results of focus groups undertaken with social work students and academics on their perceptions and experiences of assessment. We utilise this focus group data to present four principles of good assessment practice that can be used to guide a teaching and learning approach to curriculum development and pedagogy as it relates to student assessment in higher education