ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the process whereby those responsible for running courses in which placements play a part attempt to assess the performance of students during their period of industrial placement. The assessment of placement performance is an issue of continuing debate. Usually, assessment is treated in terms of technical questions to do with securing reliable and valid measurement. The assessment of the placement performance of students is widely acknowledged to be fraught with difficulty, yet there is increasing pressure to assess. Implicitly, the foregoing reasons for assessment have adopted a global model of the assessment of placement performance, whereby a judgement is made at the end of the placement as to overall attainment or success or development shown by student. The workplace supervisor is the person in the best position to see the day-to-day activity of the student and therefore one might think that he or she should be most capable of making a reasoned judgement of placement performance.
