Designing qualifications that will be fit for their purposes
This report is about qualification design and the issues that need to be considered when designing a qualification that will be fit for multiple purposes.
Applies to England
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This report is about qualification design and the issues that need to be considered when designing a qualification that will be fit for multiple purposes. It provides conceptual frameworks (thinking tools) that can be used to:
- distinguish between complementary perspectives on qualification purposes
- situate these perspectives within broader design-related considerations
- understand the scope of qualification design and its stages
These frameworks have been developed at Ofqual over the past decade and have been put into practice when drafting new regulations, particularly the purpose perspective framework. As such, the report has direct relevance to the UK policy context and is written with a UK audience in mind, although the principles that it develops are likely to be more widely applicable. The concept that binds these frameworks is the idea of a qualification purpose, which the report unpacks in detail and locates within a broader network of design-related concepts.
This report was written by Paul E. Newton from Ofqual’s Standards, Research, and Analysis Directorate.