Assessment in Dutch vocational education: Overview and tensions of the past 15 years

This chapter describes the developments in assessment practices in Dutch Vocational Education and Training (VET) in the past 15 years. Two developments have been particularly influential: (i) continuous changes in the national qualification structure describing the end goals of VET trajectories, and (ii) changes in the system of quality assurance of VET assessments. The goal of this chapter is to describe how VET institutions (re)developed their assessment practices to address these changes, through a combination of addressing changing policy and scientific research. Five tensions were identified that characterise the struggle around VET assessments: (1) new goals require new assessment methods, (2) assessment as a one-shot measurement versus a coherent programme appraisal, (3) the increased involvement of the labour market in VET, (4) securing a balance between governmental control and VET institutions’ responsibility in developing and quality assuring assessments, and (5) realising the balance between the formative and summative functions of assessment. The chapter concludes with the presentation of the Process Architecture Assessment, which is advanced as representing the state-of-the art in VET assessments. In the Process Architecture, the entire assessment process is described including the responsibilities of the different stakeholders.