Your responsibilities
As an assessor, it is your responsibility to ensure you are fully prepared for the STP Final Year Assessment.
Contingency assessors may be called on to assess. As a contingency assessor, you are also responsible for ensuring you are fully prepared for the assessment, so trainees receive an equitable experience.
Here’s everything you need to know about assessing for the STP Final Year Assessment.
What to expect in the assessment
As an assessor, you will have been assigned to a group of assessors for a specialty, based on your availability. In the assessment, you will be responsible for a station. In each station, a trainee will be presented with a single scenario. In total, trainees will rotate through 7 stations and will be presented with 7 different scenarios. Trainees will move between stations until they have completed a full circuit of the available stations. As an assessor you will remain in one station, and the trainees will rotate through the stations. The other members of the assessor group will be responsible for the other stations in the circuit, each with a different scenario.
The scenarios sample the curriculum and focus on situations that may be faced by newly-registered Clinical Scientists in day-to-day practice. Before a trainee enters your station, they will have had 3 minutes to read the scenario they are being asked to respond to. During this pre-reading time, trainees will also see the question they are being asked about the scenario. Trainees will be set 1 or 2 questions asking them what they would do in this situation. You will be able to see the questions the trainee is being asked to respond to on the mark form. You will not be able to see the scenario that the trainee is presented with during the pre-reading time. You will have access to the scenarios before the assessment so you can see the information the trainee is presented with as you prepare for the assessment.
During the pre-reading stage, trainees will be alone and will not be present with you in your station. There will be no one on screen. You’ll be alone for this part of the circuit. When the pre-reading stage is complete, a trainee will be moved into your station. The trainee will be visible to you on screen. As the trainee enters your station you need to follow the assessor script to invite the trainee to provide their response. The trainee will have 9 minutes in the station with you to provide a response to the questions asked about the scenario. You need to select the correct mark form from the list on screen for the trainee in your station and complete the mark form based on the trainee’s response. The time remaining in each station will be clearly displayed on screen at all times.
Trainees can revisit and view the scenario and questions while they are in the station, if they wish to. This will not be visible to you. Your interactions with trainees during the station will be limited. All of the information required has been provided to trainees. There is no more information for you to give to trainees or additional questions for you to ask. You may provide a limited number of verbal prompts to trainees. We provide a script of prompts that you can use. You cannot provide any additional verbal or non-verbal direction or cues to trainees, regardless of any requests a trainee may make of you or their response to the scripted prompts. Trainees are allowed to have a blank piece of paper with them to make notes and may refer to these while providing their response. Trainees are not allowed other resources such as pre-prepared notes with them.
The stations have been designed to include more time than we expect most trainees to need to provide their response. This means trainees may have time left in the station once they have provided their response. This may feel uncomfortable. At such times, you should not talk to the trainee or give them non-verbal cues. You can use this time to complete the mark form. Trainees may choose to add to their response at any point in the station. Trainees are expected to remain professional throughout the assessment. Everything they say and their behaviour in the station should be considered by you as part of the assessment. Trainees do have the option to leave a station early if they wish to. They should inform you they are leaving the station. They are not able to return to the station once they have left.
When the time in the station has concluded, trainees will be moved on to their next scenario pre-reading and will no longer be visible to you on screen. You can use the pre-reading time to continue complete the mark form. The next trainee will be moved into your station when the pre-reading time finishes, and this will continue until the trainees have completed a full circuit of stations.
The video below provides a walkthrough of the assessor experience within the Qpercom assessment platform.
What you need to know to assess
To prepare for the assessment, you should have read and viewed the guidance we have provided about expected assessor behaviours. Additionally, you should engage with and be aware of the following.
Standardisation meeting
You’ll be invited to a standardisation meeting before the assessment. This meeting will be chaired by the Lead Assessor for the specialty and include all of the assessors for that specialty. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the scenarios you will be assessing and agree a consistent approach to marking them as assessors. This is particularly important where there are multiple groups of assessors sitting on different circuits where different assessors may be marking the same scenario at different times. At these meetings you will be discussing assessing the scenarios as they have been written. This is not an opportunity to change or rewrite scenarios, marking schemes or the format of the assessment.
The assessor script
There is a limited script of verbal prompts you can use with trainees in certain circumstances.
You must only use this script and must not provide trainees with additional verbal or non-verbal direction or cues, regardless of the requests a trainee may make of you or their response to the scripted prompts. All of the information required to respond to the scenario has been provided to trainees and there is no more information for you to give to trainees or additional questions for you to ask. If you do so, the scenario will not be valid, and the station may have to be discounted from the assessment.
The stations have been designed to include more time than we expect most people to need to provide their response. As a result you may find yourself on screen with a trainee in silence, be prepared for this. This may feel unnatural and impersonal; however it is important to maintain objectivity and consistency and ensure trainees have an equitable experience.
Here are the verbal prompts you can provide to trainees:
| Event | Script |
|---|---|
| When a trainee enters the station | “Please provide your response to the scenario when you are ready” |
| If the response the trainee is providing does not relate to the scenario or indicates the trainee has significantly misunderstood the scenario. This does not apply if the trainee’s response is simply incorrect.
This can be used twice per station, if needed. |
“Would you like to look at the scenario and the question(s) again and review any notes you may have made?” |
| If a trainee asks for more information about the scenario. | “All the information is provided to you in the scenario. You can look at the scenario and the question(s) again if you wish to” |
| If there are 2 questions and the trainee has not considered the second question by halfway through the time in the station. | “Would you like to look at the scenario and the questions again, and consider how you’d like to use your remaining time in this station” |
| If a trainee is upset and struggling with their composure.
If a trainee continues to struggle and you are concerned for their wellbeing, please contact your Circuit Manager through the Qpercom help function. |
“Would you like to take a moment to take a breath. You can review the scenario and questions, and any notes you may have made again if you wish to” |
| If the trainee has provided their response and asks for feedback on their performance and/or guidance on what else they should do in the station | “You’re welcome to look at the scenario and question(s) and any notes you’ve made again and consider how you’d like to use your remaining time in this station” |
| If a trainee asks where they can view the scenario and question | You can view the scenario and questions by clicking on the ‘Open instructions’ button on your screen. |
Download a copy of the assessor script prompts below.
publicationsHow to mark
The STP Final Year Assessment uses a standardised mark form, the structure of which is the same for all stations.
When marking a trainee’s performance in a station, the trainees’ presentation style should not be considered. This includes how the trainee structures their response and the time taken to deliver it. They do not have to provide the steps they would take in response to the scenario in the order they would do them or provide the whole of their response at once. Trainees are expected to remain professional throughout the assessment. Anything the trainee says or does in the station should be considered when you are marking the trainee’s performance.
You need to select the correct mark form from the list on screen for the trainee in your station. Please check that the trainee’s name on screen is the same as the name on the mark form. You do not need to ask the trainee to identify themselves.
You will need to complete all of your marking before you log off from the Qpercom platform for the day. For each marking form, you can select the ‘Save Draft’ option if you wish to revisit a mark form later or you click ‘Submit’ if you have completed the form. You can still revisit and revise a submitted mark form later if you wish to. The ‘Cancel’ button on the mark form will remove all information you have submitted to the mark form. Completion of mark forms is monitored by the Circuit Manager who may provide you with guidance, if required.
There are 3 elements to the mark form. You must complete each element.
1. Marking criteria
The marking criteria capture the expected responses to the scenario as discrete criteria. There will be multiple marking criteria for each scenario. As an assessor you are asked to determine to what level the trainee has evidenced each of the criteria in their response. Some marking criteria may include examples that may be included in the trainee’s response. These examples are not intended as an exhaustive list, and you may use your professional knowledge and judgement to determine if the trainee’s response is in line with the criteria. Local practice also needs to be accommodated in your assessment of the trainee’s response, where a trainee provides an appropriate response that may differ from your own local practice.
2. Global judgment
The global rating scale judgment captures your overarching professional opinion of the trainee’s response to the scenario. You should consider the degree to which you felt the trainee was able to navigate the scenario safely as expected by a threshold level Clinical Scientist.
Your global judgement may be guided by the marking criteria. However, it is not simply a summary of the achievement of each individual marking criteria. A trainee may provide a response which is valuable and relevant and demonstrates safe practice but does not meet every marking criteria. In this case you may choose to select one of the ‘pass’ global judgements of the trainee’s response. Conversely, a trainee may meet every marking criteria and yet an element of their behaviour or response indicates that they are not safe to practice, in which case you may choose a ‘fail’ global judgement for the trainee’s response. Where you cannot make a conclusive judgement about the trainee, you should select the borderline rating. The global judgement is a professional decision made by you as an assessor which stands independent of the marking criteria.
Your decision on the global judgment must be made solely on the trainee’s performance in the station in which you are assessing them. Any knowledge you have of the trainee outside the station must not be considered.
Trainees may not need to pass every station to achieve the minimum threshold required to be successful in the assessment overall. A trainee may not receive an overall fail outcome for the assessment simply because you have given a failing global judgement for your station.
3. Global judgement feedback
You must provide feedback on every trainee, even if minimal. A marking form cannot be submitted without feedback. The feedback you write will be provided to trainees and so should be professional and constructive. Feedback may be minimal where you have given a ‘pass’ global judgement which is in alignment with the marking criteria. If you have given a ‘fail’ global judgement and/or your global judgment is out of alignment with the marking criteria, you will need to provide feedback to explain the rationale for your decision and support the trainee to improve their ability to navigate the scenario.