Failing to fail students in the caring professions

Abstract

This article represents a personal view of the phenomenon of professionals ‘failing to fail’ students of questionable competence. It is mainly drawn from the author’s experience first as a practice teacher, then as a lecturer and manager of a social work qualifying programme and recently as tutor of a programme preparing social workers and others to become practice teachers and assessors. The article first examines aspects of the process of practice assessment and then argues that the turnover amongst those given this responsibility means that the expertise appropriate to undertaking such a complex task is difficult to accumulate. It then offers some remedies that focus more on organisational responses than simply on the individual professionals who take on this essential responsibility.

Much of the recent concern about social work practice teaching and assessing has focussed on the question of quantity. Getting enough practice learning opportunities is a perennial problem in itself- but this article addresses an issue of quality, namely ensuring that both pass and fail decisions are made with confidence.

As the author’s background is social work in England, the article will use social work terminology and refer to social work and other documents from the English context, but he hopes that readers from other professions and countries will find the debate useful.

This article is developed from a talk given by the author at the fifth International Conference on Practice Teaching and Field Education in Health and Social Work, York, 10-12 July 2006.