Assessing Knowledge

Assessment is one important component of effective learning design. The process of assessment can be explained as starting with an understanding of what a learner needs to know or be able to do by the end of the learning experience, what they have to do to achieve this and what method is best applied to ascertain if the learner has reached the required level (Cockcroft, 2023). Without assessment, educators and trainers would have limited awareness of the extent to which (if at all) they are cultivating learners’ knowledge, attitudes and skills, both as the learning proceeds (formative assessment) and at the end of learning (summative assessment). Traditionally, much police learning and associated assessment has been in-house / work-based. It has been delivered within local Learning and Development units, typically by former police officers (Stanko & Hohl, 2018) with portfolios predominantly used as the mode of assessment for practitioners. The embedding of a professionalisation agenda over the last decade, however, has led to a renewed focus on assessment for officers who have joined through the graduate entry routes (formally known as the Policing Education Qualifications Framework, PEQF; see Wood, 2018), and continue to join through the Police Constable Entry Pathways (PCEP). Framed by recent trends within police learning and specifically developments in the field of rape investigation, the aim of this chapter is twofold. Firstly, there is a focus on what the Soteria ‘deep dives’ revealed about the process of assessment. In this chapter the focus is focused on the the role of assessment within the portfolio-based Serious Sexual Assault Investigator’s Development Programme (SSAIDP). Secondly, an examination of what ‘best practice assessment’ might look like in the Rape and Serious Sexual Offending (RASSO) context