Towards a Framework to Assess Workplace Learning for Adult Learners in Singapore

by Lu Shengli, Mark (Masters in Curriculum and Teaching, 2024)

Adult Learning Assessment: A Three-Body Problem

The three-body problem is a centuries-old mathematical problem that remains unsolvable even till today. It hypothesises that when there are three masses in space, each exerting their own gravitational pull on a planet, there will be “chaotic dynamics” between them which make the planet’s movement and orbit unpredictable (Montgomery, 2019). This problem perhaps serves as an apt metaphor to describe the dynamics of assessments for adult learning or Continuing Education and Training (CET) programmes in Singapore, where assessment makers are often pulled in opposite directions by the following needs: (i) the school’s need for accuracy and objectivity in assessments; (ii) the industry’s need for authenticity in assessments; and (iii) the learner’s individual learning needs. This issue is especially relevant to CET courses where students are mostly employed and come with very diverse backgrounds, motivations, skillsets and prior knowledge. Currently, the lack of a collaborative model between stakeholders to co-produce CET assessments has resulted in assessments that tend to focus more on the school’s need for objectivity, potentially at the expense of their authenticity and equitability. 

 This paper will examine the assessment practices of the Work-Study Programme (WSP) in Singapore – a 12- to 18-month programme where learners work full-time and receive on-the-job training, while pursuing their studies part-time. This programme aims to give recent graduates from the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHL) “a head-start in careers related to their discipline of study” and “build on the skills and knowledge they acquired in school, and support their transition into the workforce” (Ministry of Education, n.d., p. 6). More specifically, this essay notes that while the emphasis of WSP seems to be on workplace learning, there is no assessment to evaluate and recognise students’ learning at work. Instead, formal assessments and recognition of learning only take place in school where students are required to attend classes and work on assignments in those classes, even though they may be already doing very similar tasks at their workplace. This paper argues that the gap between workplace and school-based assessments may be a result of the contradictory narratives inherent in WSPs, and that this results in the need for the assessment maker to make compromises in an effort to balance authenticity, validity, equality and equity. These compromises could result in assessments that are less authentic and equitable, and therefore less meaningful for adult learners. The second part of this essay proposes a framework to assess and recognise the learning that takes place at the workplace. This framework will include WSP students and their employers in the co-production of outcomes and standards so that assessments can be “conducted in a way that involves an authentic process with an authentic product” (Boud, 2023, p. 130). It is hoped that this new assessment framework can result in greater recognition of the learner’s skill sets by their employer and help broker better career growth and opportunities.  

A Brief Background to the WSP

The WSP was first launched as the Earn and Learn Programme (ELP) in 2015 and was later rebranded as the Work-Study Programme in 2019. Under the WSP, fresh graduates from the various IHLs may pursue one of the following qualifications: (i) Work-Study Diploma, (ii) Work-Study Post-Diploma, and (iii) Work-Study Certificate (SkillsFuture, n.d.-a). The programme aims to give participants a head start in their careers, and is largely based on apprenticeship programmes in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Germany where apprentices receive a salary and training at the same time. The key components of the ELP and WSP curriculum are “facilitated learning in the classroom, structured on-the-job training and work-based projects to allow participants to deepen their skill sets at the workplace” (Ministry of Trade and Industry, 2019, p. 41). As an incentive to participate in the ELP/WSP, employers can receive a grant of up to $15,000 per participant to defray the costs of on-the-job training, and participants receive a sign-on incentive of $5,000. 

In 2019, the Ministry of Trade and Industry conducted a study on the wage outcomes of polytechnic graduates who went on the ELP, versus those who went to work, and those who furthered their studies at Private Education Institutes. It was observed that ELP graduates earned 44% more during the programme and 41% more one month after graduating from the programme compared to the other two groups, though the wage premium for ELP graduates narrowed over time. The study concludes that employers may have paid ELP participants a higher salary because they saw the programme “as a proxy for the graduates’ expected productivity” (Ministry of Trade and Industry, 2019, p. 46). To date, there is no study on the effectiveness of the WSP curriculum or assessment practices on student learning. As such, this paper hopes to prompt greater discussion and research in this area.

Two Paradoxical Narratives of the WSP

In his National Day Rally Speech in 2004, then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong launched the Teach Less, Learn More (TLLM) movement in an effort to “[shift] Singapore’s performance-driven education based on quantifiable indicators, to quality-driven education based on a broader definition of success and diverse learning pathways” (Ng, 2017, p. 93). Ten years later, in August 2014, Mr Lee launched the SkillsFuture movement as a way to promote lifelong learning and ensure that Singaporeans remain economically productive and employable through constant upskilling. As noted by Ng (2017), the aim of this movement is to “make both the school and the workplace twin sites of learning” (47, emphasis mine) where students can attain skills and knowledge from both places and be recognised for them. 

The aims of the TLLM and SkillsFuture movements have significantly shaped the way assessments are developed and conducted in the CET space in Singapore. This is because these movements seem to mark a shift away from “Singapore’s powerful legacy of instrumentalist logic” (Albright & Kramer-Dahl, 2009, p. 209) where assessments mostly serve a “certifying and benchmarking purpose” (Chong, 2018, p. 332), to one where assessments can be more authentic and differentiated, and where, as then Education Minister Ong Ye Kung said:

    we will have a better balance between knowledge and skills pursuits, between academic and competency accomplishments […] that is more reflective of the
    needs of the economy and personal aspirations (cited in Ng, 2017, p. 48).

The way in which workplace learning is a key component of the WSP curriculum seems to suggest a successful shift away from instrumentalism and an “unreflective acceptance of the virtues of proceduralism” (McArthur, 2016, p. 969) to more authentic, context-specific assessments. However, this may not necessarily be the case: while there is a structured training programme at the workplace, the learning that takes place there is neither assessed nor recognised by the IHLs. Students are only given a Pass/Fail grade for the on-the-job training component and are still required to attend classes that teach and assess the exact same things in school. 

As mentioned in the previous section, the WSP curriculum structure typically comprises a workplace learning component and several school-based modules – both components co-exist but have arguably little interaction with one another, as the skills learned in the workplace are not formally recognised by the school. For example, a student pursuing a WSP course in digital marketing may have been trained to work on real social media campaigns at work, but in order to be recognised as having attained this skillset, they will still need to study a module in social media marketing in school and be assessed for their learning through a classroom assignment. Moreover, since the structured training programme at work is a graded component in the programme, it seems to suggest that the workplace is the lesser of the twins as it is not deemed equivalent to or as legitimate as the learning that takes place in school.

The way in which these two contrasting forms of learning (work-based and school-based) are simultaneously a part of and apart from each other within the same curriculum is perhaps reflective of the tensions that still exist regarding assessments amongst Singapore policy makers and educators today. Albright and Kramer-Dahl (2009) aptly use the metaphor of the palimpsest (a manuscript that has been written over while still bearing the marks of the previous text) to describe Singapore’s education policy, noting that “official educational policy, cumulatively added over time, forms a palimpsest of often overlapping and contradictory discourses that become sedimented in teachers’ pedagogy (Cormack and Comber 1996)” (p. 201, emphasis in original). 

This contradiction may be seen through the various components within the SkillsFuture movement itself. On the one hand, SkillsFuture champions the importance of workplace learning by offering very attractive financial incentives to both employers and employees to join the WSP, and has positioned WSPs as a way for students to get a head start in their career while pursuing their further studies. On the other hand, SkillsFuture has also developed the Skills Framework for all the key industries in Singapore – this framework is essentially a very detailed list of all the skills and competencies needed for various job roles which schools must base their curriculum on (see for example the Media Skills Framework: https://www.skillsfuture.gov.sg/skills-framework/media). 

These are two very contrasting narratives. Firstly, workplace learning assumes that the most effective learning takes place through the practice itself, and that learning outcomes cannot always be specified in advance (Beckett and Hager, 2023, p. 13) since the workplace is often complex and unpredictable, and no one workplace is the same as the other. In contrast, the Skills Frameworks are arguably based on a highly procedural, instrumentalist approach to curriculum where learning outcomes must be “definite and particularized” (Bobbitt, 2004, p. 11), and “ensuring neutrality or objectivity in terms of assessment tools” (McArthur, 2016, p. 969). The existence of the Skills Frameworks are thus reflective of traces of a more “conventional assumption of education” where knowledge and skills should still be taught and assessed in schools because they are more fair and valid. These contrasting narratives may mean that curriculum planners and teachers need to make certain compromises in their assessments in order to accommodate both points of view – one such compromise is to simply not assess or grade the on-the-job training component of the WSP. This will be discussed further in the next section. 

Issues with Authenticity and Fairness

Authentic assessments are those which simulate real-world tasks. As Gulikers, et al. (2004) suggest, such assessments should “[require] students to use the same competencies, or combinations of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, that they need to apply in the criterion situation in professional life” (p. 69), and these assessments should be similar in terms of the nature of the task, the physical and social contexts, the outcomes and the standards in the industry. McArthur (2022) extends this definition further by saying that authenticity should go beyond merely replicating professional work, but should help the learner reflect on their role as a member of society, as well as how their work can contribute to or address various social issues. Highly authentic assessments may sometimes affect its construct validity because of the unpredictable nature of the workplace: as such, they may not always be able to test for the intended learning outcomes or account for “the substantive extra-disciplinary learning gained in participating in practices” (Boud, 2023, p. 128).

Fairness in assessments may be understood in terms of equality and equity. Assessments which emphasise equality tend to apply an equal standard to all students and “[avoid] bias by disregarding students’ privileged or disadvantaged backgrounds” (Rasooli, et al, 2023, p. 265). Conversely, equitable assessments are those which are “individualized, continuous, and responsive to student needs, circumstances, effort and improvement” (p. 262). Researchers have argued against the former type of assessments because “impartial processes do not guarantee just outcomes” (McArthur, 2016, p. 972). Moreover, having a standardised task with very specific outcomes may limit students’ ability to think flexibly and independently – which, ironically, are the very things that IHLs should be encouraging (Torrance, 2012, p. 332).

Authenticity and equity are perhaps the two most important elements of assessments in CET courses. This is because most adult learners are already working and need to be able to quickly apply what they have learned to their jobs in order to perform better and/or progress in their careers. However, given the contrasting narratives found within WSPs, curriculum developers may struggle to come up with assessment tools that are authentic and relevant to each students’ context, while ensuring that there is construct validity and equality. This may result in them compromising the effectiveness of the assessment in order to satisfy all four competing dimensions. To better illustrate this argument, this essay will analyse an assessment from a module on Social Media Creation and Management, taken from a WSP in Digital Marketing offered by a polytechnic in Singapore – see Annex A for the assignment brief. In this assignment, students are tasked to carry out a social media audit on their company, or on another company selected by the teacher for students who are unemployed.

In terms of authenticity, this assessment mirrors what social media professionals would do in the industry in terms of the task and outcomes. For students who are employed, the task is even more authentic as they are able to do the audit for their own company. However, as this assignment is only done in school, students may not have authentic feedback from their employers, nor would they have the experience of working on this project with their company’s social media team. In this way, the student may not be able to fully appreciate their role in the context of the company, nor see how their task may add value to the company and to society.

In terms of fairness, this assessment ensures equality by requiring all students to carry out the same task and produce the same outcomes. The rubrics are also detailed and transparent for all students. The assessment tries to be equitable by allowing students who are employed to carry out the audit for their own company, while providing a viable option for students who are unemployed. However, there are very specific requirements that the student’s company needs to fulfil before they can choose to work on it – and not many local SMEs in Singapore have a strong social media presence. In addition, the requirements for both a quantitative and qualitative analysis may put some students at a disadvantage as their company may not have a large enough social media following to make any meaningful quantitative analysis. While it may be argued that such students should then go for the second option and analyse a company chosen by the teacher, this would mean that the assessment becomes less authentic and relevant to them.

As Boud (2023) rightly argues, “an obviously practice-oriented activity can be undermined by how it is assessed” (p. 128). Using the WSP as a case study, this essay has thus far argued that there are still traces of instrumentalism and proceduralism in the assessments of CET courses in Singapore. This misalignment of programme aims with the assessment may potentially lead to issues in the authenticity and equity of assessments, which may in turn negatively impact “learner benefits” in terms of learning outcomes and learner growth (Tan, 2022). The following section will propose a collaborative framework to assess and recognise workplace learning for the WSP, through a co-production of learning outcomes, assessments and rubrics between assessment makers, industry and students. It is hoped that this new assessment framework will truly make the workplace and school twin sites of learning, and help employers to see the value of their employee’s new skills – as is the intention of the WSP and the SkillsFuture movement.

A Framework for Co-Producing WSP Assessments

Assessments play a crucial role in any curriculum. Firstly, according to Tyler (1949), evaluation is a way to “check the validity of the basic hypotheses upon which the instructional program has been organised and developed”, and helps the curriculum maker in “finding out how far learning experiences as developed and organized are actually producing the desired results” (p. 104). Thus, if the aim of the WSP is to give learners “a head-start in careers related to their discipline of study” and “build on the skills and knowledge they acquired in school, and support their transition into the workforce” (Ministry of Education, n.d., p. 6), and if one of the key learning experiences is through structured on-the-job training, then it follows that there ought to be some form of assessment(s) to ensure that this experience is effective in meeting the aims of the programme. Schawb (1973) firmly believes that the curriculum (and, by extension, assessments within it) should not be developed by one person alone but through a collaboration of “five bodies of experience”: (i) the subject matter expert, (ii) someone who understands learners and their needs, (iii) someone familiar with the milieus or the community, (iv) an expert in pedagogy and (v) the curriculum maker who chairs the group. Such a group ensures that better decisions about the curriculum are made because multiple viewpoints are discussed and considered. 

To a large extent, CET courses in Singapore already do adopt a collaborative model when planning course aims and learning experiences: the SkillsFuture Skills Frameworks, for example, which outline the key competencies needed in various industries, were co-created by government agencies, industry practitioners and schools – these frameworks then form the learning outcomes of the curriculum. However, this co-creation does not often extend to the level of assessments in the WSP – the skills acquired from the on-the-job training component is not formally assessed and recognised, and most assessments still take place in the classroom at school. To ensure better learning outcomes, it is suggested that a framework of co-producing assessments be introduced to the WSP.

The concept of co-production was first developed in the context of public services, which recognises the “equal and reciprocal relationship between professionals, people using services, their families and their neighbours” (Holmboe, 2017). When activities are co-produced with these stakeholders, better and more impactful services will come about. This model was then extended into the production of work-based assessments in medical education where “learners, faculty, health professionals and patients […] design, create, develop, assess and improve the relationships and activities that contribute to effective assessment and professional development of learners” (Holmboe, 2017). Harrison et. al. (2023) note that evidence has shown that co-creation of assessment rubrics with students can lead to better student performance because it has a positive impact on motivation, self-efficacy and depth of learning. Batalden et. al. (2016) proposed the following model for co-produced healthcare services: