Lane 1 Assessment
Scaffolded portfolio assessment using Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) principles to track professional competency development across multiple units.
The Competency Passport is a scaffolded assessment where students track their professional capabilities against a set of professional standards. It runs across multiple units using Work Integrated Learning principles that mirror workplace tasks, strengthening professional identity formation.
“The Passport to Practice transforms how students think about their professional development. Instead of seeing learning as separate from career preparation, they begin to understand how every experience contributes to their professional identity.”
Faculty of Health Sciences
“Passport to Practice has been a critical response to student feedback about developing a greater sense of discipline identity and work-readiness by providing specific opportunities to identify and apply our professional competencies.”
Faculty of Health Sciences
About our units: Faculty of Health Sciences | Under 50 students | Hybrid | Individual work
The Passport to Practice is an innovative assessment series embedded across the BSc Health Promotion program, designed as a WIL approach that tracks and develops students’ competencies aligned with the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) Core Competencies and Professional Standards for Health Promotion. The series spans three key units across the degree – from first-year health promotion principles through second-year practical application to a third-year capstone focusing on leadership and professional identity.
Students systematically map their existing knowledge and skills against nine IUHPE competency domains while engaging in diverse co-curricular activities, including professional networking, cultural awareness training, volunteering with health promotion organisations, attending industry events, undertaking job interviews with industry stakeholders and participating in advocacy and research activities.
The series employs a scaffolded approach where students assess their current competency levels, plan activities to address identified gaps, participate in reflective exercises, and build upon previous years’ activities, culminating in demonstrating mature grasp of competencies through oral defence.
Supported by PebblePad, an online portfolio platform, the assessment uses authentic WIL principles that mirror real workplace tasks while strengthening students’ professional identity and global citizenship skills across three dimensions: social responsibility, global competence, and global civic engagement.
Our advice
Start with clear competency frameworks and ensure students understand how each activity connects to their professional development. Working as a faculty team within and between units and bringing the whole discipline along on the journey has ensured that each lecturer is clear on the aims and objectives of the assessment. This means they can effectively ‘sell’ it to students who might otherwise be nervous about or question the industry-connected nature of the learning experience and to industry partners who are looking for the co-benefits of participating.
Note: Marking criteria and weighting are suggested guidelines. Specific descriptions should be adapted to relevant content and learning objectives.