Regulating post-16 VTQs at L2 and L3
V Level Qualification design (Assessment objectives)
Assessment objectives
Assessment objectives are one way of ensuring that the assessments made available by different awarding organisations are designed in a comparable way for a given subject. They are intended to:
- ensure students are assessed on an appropriate balance of the key abilities for that subject
- help ensure the assessment of those abilities – and as such the level and nature of demand of qualifications in a subject – is comparable between awarding organisations and over time
They are used by awarding organisations when designing and setting their assessments, each series and over time, and are considered by Ofqual as part of accreditation and as part of ongoing monitoring when qualifications are in delivery.
Proposal
For assessment objectives to be effective, they must reflect the expectations in the subject content. For the first V Levels in digital systems and data, accounting and finance, and education, having considered the draft content, we propose to specify the same assessment objectives and weightings for each, which awarding organisations must meet. The assessment objectives and weightings we propose are:
|
Assessment objective |
Weighting |
|
AO1 – Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of concepts, principles, requirements and contextual factors relevant to the subject area |
30 to 35% |
|
AO2 – Apply knowledge and understanding to carry out tasks, produce outputs, and use information appropriately |
35 to 40% |
|
AO3 – Analyse and evaluate information, situations and evidence to make judgements, draw conclusions and make recommendations |
25 to 30% |
To ensure assessment objectives are applied consistently by awarding organisations, we also propose to issue subject-specific guidance that will set out how the assessment objectives should be interpreted, and includes:
- the ‘elements’ within each assessment objective, that is, the discrete aspects that questions or tasks could target and/or seek to credit – our expectation is that each and every question or task should target or seek to credit at least one of the elements, and may target or seek to credit multiple elements across one or more assessment objectives
- the coverage expectations, such as in relation to the different elements within each assessment objective and how those elements should be sampled over time
- the key areas of emphasis in each assessment objective and the particular meaning for the subject of any key terms and phrases used – defined terms are shown in bold text, followed by their definitions.
For V Level subjects in future tranches, we will consider whether the assessment objectives and weightings proposed above are appropriate or whether alternatives need to be specified. Whether the assessment objectives and weightings are the same or different, we will set subject-specific guidance on assessment objectives for subjects being developed for future tranches.
Our proposed Conditions VL(Digital Systems and Data)1.2, VL(Accounting and Finance)1.2 and VL(Education)1.2, the associated requirements and the guidance on assessment objectives are set out in Annex A.