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

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Education
• Nursing Assessment
• Professional Development

Background:

• Portfolio assessment in healthcare professions lacks standardized, developed criteria.
• Current assessment methods are often localized, impressionistic, and inconsistently applied.
• Existing criteria are typically generic and adapted from Higher Education Institutes (HEIs).

Purpose of the Study:

• To present Masters-level marking criteria for portfolios in practice-based healthcare disciplines.
• To develop and refine criteria based on Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) descriptors and practice-based outcomes.
• To enhance the applicability of assessment criteria for Masters-level healthcare portfolios.

Main Methods:

• A six-stage methodology was employed to analyze, develop, re-order, test, and refine marking criteria.
• Criteria were developed by combining QAA descriptors with practice-based outcomes.
• The emerging criteria were tested against existing Masters-level portfolios from nursing and healthcare courses.

Main Results:

• Developed Masters-level marking criteria for healthcare portfolios.
• Illustrated criteria with extracts from existing portfolios.
• Case studies from two diverse English sites demonstrated the criteria's application.

Conclusions:

• Effective Masters-level portfolios require coherent structure, reflective conclusions, and linked evidence.
• The presented marking criteria assess structure, reflection, and evidence linkage.
• The criteria support formative and summative assessment for identifying student strengths and weaknesses.