Opportunities for work place learning are increasingly being offered as an option on UK undergraduate History courses. This growth was recognised by the History Benchmark Revision Group in 2007 when it acknowledged ‘the growing number and importance of learning activities such as fieldwork, community-based projects, work placements’.

Although there is a vast literature on work-based and workplace learning (WBL/WPL), there is comparatively little written on the assessment of this form of learning and even less, if anything, on the assessment of WBL and WPLin History. This is surprising given the centrality of assessment to learning and teaching, a view signalled very clearly in the 2007 QAA History Benchmark Statement.

This session will report on the work undertaken for the History Subject Centre funded project on the assessment of workplace learning on undergraduate History programmes across the UK. It forms part of the Subject Centre’s ‘History Graduates with Impact’ project. The presentation will discuss the implications for the design and implementation of assessment practices in workplace learning modules. Among the particular issues addressed will be the extent and organization of WPL; the purposes of WPL assessment; the range of assessment methods used; the role of employers as assessors; and feedback to students on WPL assessment.