ABSTRACT

The terms examination, assessment and evaluation are all employed in education to refer to different forms of appraisal. The relationship between competency and the aims of professional education are explored and this leads to an analysis of the criteria for examinations. Many educators in the professions are involved, at one stage or another, in selecting candidates for the courses that they organise. Often this process also results in selecting the recruits for the profession itself. Hence an education department lecturer, interviewing candidates for a course in education, may also be selecting recruits to teaching. The whole of the educational process, including its assessment procedures, may also act as another selection mechanism for entry into the profession. Educationalists have been as much concerned with the process model as with the content model. Self-assessment is an even more important skill to develop since many practitioners may rarely have their professional performance appraised overtly once they have finished their basic professional education.