6 Assessing productive and interactive skills Personal refl ection

Standard setting
The standard setting methods described in 
Chapter 5
were developed 
with objectively scored multiple choice tests in mind. In setting 
standards for performance assessments and for assessments involving 
a variety of task types, including portfolios, a holistic approach such 
as the 
body of work
method may be more appropriate. This can be 
considered an assessee-centred method like the borderline and 
contrasting groups methods described in 
Chapter 5
; but instead of fi rst 
classifying learners as minimally competent or borderline and then 
having them take the assessment, samples of assessee performances on 
the assessment covering the full range of score levels are collected in 
advance and then presented to the panel of expert judges.
The judges view performances by specifi c assessees on all of the tasks 
involved in the assessment and then each panellist comes to a conclusion 
about whether or not they consider the assessee to be minimally competent. 
The panellists repeat the same procedure with the responses of other 
assessees at different score levels. Several rounds of discussion may be held 

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