Marking criteria for assessing practice-based portfolios at masters' level.

Whilst portfolios have increasingly been used to assess attainment and competence in nursing and other health care professions for over a decade, the assessment processes and criteria for assessing them have remained largely rudimentary and undeveloped. In fact, assessment often remains localised, impressionistic and dependent upon the interpretation and adaptation of criteria developed generically for work at this level within individual Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). This paper presents Masters' level marking criteria for portfolios from practice-based healthcare disciplines developed from the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) descriptors of Masters level achievement and graduateness [Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 2001. The Framework for Higher Education Qualifications in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland] in combination with practice-based outcomes. A six-stage methodology was devised to analyse these descriptors, develop, re-order, test and refine them in order to enhance their applicability to portfolios from practice-based disciplines. As part of this process the emerging criteria were tested against existing portfolios. Extracts from these are presented to illustrate the criteria. Two case study sites from diverse areas of England are used where Masters' courses in nursing and healthcare disciplines are offered. For portfolios to be effective in demonstrating Masters' level academic criteria, learning outcomes and advanced professional practice they need to demonstrate coherent structure, conclusions drawn from reflection on practice and a body of evidence that is coherent with, and linked to their reflective commentaries. The marking criteria presented to assess these attributes incorporate features of the structures, processes and outcomes of both practice and learning. The strategy can be used by both assessors and students, in formative and summative assessment, to identify student attainments, strengths and weaknesses.