FOI24/25 024 Guidelines for Project Brief Learning Materials

Date published: 30/07/2024

I would like to request the guidelines established by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) for colleges or lectures regarding the creation of project brief learning matierals for exercise or asessments and how they need to be created to make then suitable and meet the SQA requirements to be used as earning matierals for exercise or asessments. I kindly request access to any documentation, policies, or guidelines issued by the SQA that detail the criteria, standards, or recommendations for colleges and lecturers when developing project briefs for student exercises or assessments.

I believe it is essential to have transparency and insight into the processes that govern the creation of learning materials ensuring they meet the necessary standards for student success and academic excellence Thank you for your cooperation, and egerly await your response.

The following should provide the information requested.

SQA encourages educators / lecturers to create assessments for their programme or learning and for their learners. To support this SQA have a number of guidance documents that guide educators / lecturers to do this. Below are links to two guidance documents for educators / lecturers.

The guide to assessment also contains information to help develop assessments:

Guide to assessment (sqa.org.uk)

 

The Guidance on implementation of Graded Units also contains useful information:

Graded Units - SQA

In addition, there is a guidance document for educators /lecturers :

Generate_Evidence_Jan_10.pdf (sqa.org.uk)

This can help them think about ways to assess and gather evidence for the units within a Group Award.

Within the Unit specifications and Group Award specifications there is guidance supplied by the writers of the units that give suggested ways to develop assessments, including projects (as appropriate to the qualification). These are available on the SQA website: Qualifications homepage - SQA.

This is an example of a Group Award specification and in section 6 there is a section titled Guidance on approaches to delivery and assessment https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/gp7x15-gr5j16.pdf

In addition, SQA also, in some instances, create ‘Assessment Support Packs’ (ASPs) that outline how a unit can be assessed. These are available to educators / lecturers on the SQA Secure website. The educators / lecturers can use these assessments if they decide to, or they can create their own. This  spreadsheet lists all the ASPs available: TAPSPublicationList.xls (live.com)

Internal Assessment Support Materials and the ASPs spreadsheet linked above can be found here: Internal Assessment Support Materials - SQA.

There is also a SQA Academy module that educators/ lecturers can access that gives guidance on developing assessments, including projects.

Course: NextGen: HN – Assessment | SQA Academy

Where educators / lecturers create their own assessment there is a process called ‘Prior Verification’ whereby SQA Verifiers approve the assessment that has been produced to ensure it meets the national standard. There is more information on this here:

Prior Verification - SQA Advanced and HN - SQA

There are also standardisation events for educators / lecturers where they come together with SQA to share their assessments and they are considered together to ensure that there is a standardised approach to assessing learners across SQA delivering centres.

I hope this sufficiently addresses your query.