Investigating student preparedness for holistic competency assessment: Insights from the Hong Kong context

In recent years, there have been increasing efforts to formally assess holistic competencies. These efforts tend to be policy and expert driven, overlooking students’ subjectivities in being assessed. Questions remain about how prepared students are for holistic competency assessment. To address this research gap, we conducted 2150 surveys and 17 focus group interviews (N = 73) with Hong Kong university students, attempting to understand their level of preparedness through the lens of student assessment literacy. Findings suggest that while students may be reasonably prepared for holistic competency assessment, they also raise a range of issues that require further deliberation in assessment planning (e.g. how to report assessment results; the form of support provided to students; democratising the assessment process). Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.