This chapter discusses the types of assessment tasks that students undertake for upper secondary certification, including activities with unseen tasks (often referred to as exams), practical activities and performances, projects and portfolios, naturally occurring evidence and tasks where the nature of the assessment is not defined and is typically developed by teachers. This chapter discusses the prevalence of different assessment tasks across OECD countries’ upper secondary certificates, the skills and knowledge the tasks can assess and their associated challenges. It finishes with an overview of the merits and challenges of different assessment tasks. The chapter annex provides country examples of various assessment tasks discussed throughout the chapter.
The Theory and Practice of Upper Secondary Certification
Abstract
The chapter’s framework draws on the wide range of professional guides for assessment techniques and methods; a suggested reading list is provided in Annex 3.A. In developing this report, the OECD Secretariat worked with members of the Informal Working Group on Assessment and Certification (see Document Annex A for a list of members) to map their systems’ upper secondary certificates according to the matrix discussed in Chapter 2 and set out in Figure 2.1.
Chapters 3-6 of this report present analysis of the assessment components which comprise upper secondary certificates across OECD countries. For each upper secondary certificate analysed, individual assessment components were identified collaboratively by the OECD Secretariat and country representatives. The term ‘assessment components’ refers to the different assessments or types of assessments students experience, with these components each being labelled as they would be familiar to students and teachers of that country. For example, one assessment component might be ‘final exams’ and another might be ‘teacher-based assessment’.
Overall, 71 upper secondary certificates across 38 education systems were mapped. Certificates included 37 general education certificates, 26 vocational education certificates and eight certificates used for both general and vocational education. Document Annex 3.B lists the certificates that have been included in this mapping. The OECD and country representatives from each country worked together to map each upper secondary certificate according to the framework provided in Chapter 2, with the OECD ensuring consistency and alignment in the way that each certificate was mapped.
Scope of certificates analysed
The scope of this paper is to analyse upper secondary certification i.e. the certificates that students work towards while in upper secondary. Most certificates analysed represent upper secondary completion. However, this is not always the case and the relationship between upper secondary programmes and upper secondary certificates is not always direct, for example:
Some certificates may be taken and achieved part-way through a cycle of upper secondary education e.g. General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, typically taken at 16 and, in New Zealand, students can achieve National Certificates of Educational Achievement (NCEA) at three different levels.
Some certificates may be achieved by students in both general education and vocational education e.g. the Matura in Lithuania.
Some certificates do not span or cover a full programme of learning, rather a subject or a subject-sized component of a full programme. For example, post-16 general education students in England, Northern Ireland and Wales typically take 3-4 AS/A level qualifications, each of which is a certificate in its own right.
Out of scope for the analysis in this report are exams or tests required for higher education entrance, where these are not strictly a part of the upper secondary programme. This excludes examinations like, for example, Korea’s Scholastic Ability Test (KSAT or Suneung) which, although based on the national core curriculum, is not a requirement for upper secondary completion and its scores are taken into account in the university admission process.
The section below discusses some important caveats and considerations when engaging with the results of the mapping exercise.
Students working towards the same certificate do not always share common experiences
The mapping exercise was undertaken at the system-level, rather than recording precisely what individual students experience. Some countries provide more or less flexibility in how they design upper secondary programmes (Stronati, 2023[1]), and this flexibility means that decisions at different levels – system-level, regional-level, school-level, teacher-level and student-level – shape students’ experiences with assessment and certification. Student experiences can vary for a range of reasons, for example, if students take different subjects and different subjects are assessed differently. In some systems, students have flexibility over how they are assessed. For example, students in Estonia can opt into being assessed for practical work or subject research as an alternative to a more “traditional” exam. These options for flexibility and variation which are built into the design of upper secondary systems and certificates can also interact with other socio-cultural factors, resulting in different groups of students tending to have different experiences of assessment and certification. For example, in New Zealand, research shows that students attending higher socio-economic schools are more likely to undertake a higher proportion of externally set assessments (New Zealand Qualifications Authority, 2024[2]).
The matrix and mapping are initial and will evolve
This is a first mapping which the OECD Secretariat plans to develop in the future by adding missing systems and ensuring comprehensive coverage of certificates for vocational and general education in each system. Further development of the matrix is also necessary to better reflect: differences in assessment approaches across subjects; weighting of different assessment components; assessment of cross-curricular skills; and non-graded components e.g. attendance.
Further research and analysis are also necessary to explore specific aspects of upper secondary certification such as marking, assessment standards and moderation of assessment, and interactions between upper secondary certification and higher education entry and competitive selection.
Across all the certificates mapped by the OECD Secretariat, the most common tasks are unseen questions/tasks, found in 59 of 71 certificates (see Figure 3.1), i.e., 59 out of 71 certificates include at least one component that has been categorised as being an ‘activity with unseen questions/tasks’. These 59 certificates are not necessarily exclusively made up of ‘unseen questions/tasks’ activities, and most certificates include multiple assessment components. The ‘unseen questions/tasks’ category encompasses traditional, paper-based, tests or ‘examinations’, their digitised formats and also other sorts of tests of knowledge and skills that impose the constraint that the test task or questions should be unseen. Since unseen tasks tend to be easier to standardise, with all students being presented with the same questions, they are more common in upper secondary general certificates, which are frequently used for selection and entrance to higher education. Unseen, standardised tasks can be used to promote fairness and comparison across students.
Most certificates (38 out of 71) also include a component where the decision-making around the format of the assessment is devolved to school or regional actors, and so the assessment type is not specified nationally. Finally, both projects and practical activities are relatively common, with around half of certificates using these types of tasks.
Number of certificates by assessment tasks
Note: Most certificates include multiple components.
Source: Transitions in Upper Secondary Education Certificate and Assessment mapping exercise, data collected across 2024 and 2025.
Nature of assessment task not specified
Of the 71 upper secondary certificates analysed for this paper, 38 include an assessment component where the assessment task is not specified. This approach to assessment design – when the format and structure of the assessment is left up to schools and teachers – is found in certificates for both general and vocational education. Table 3.1 lists the countries and certificates which include assessment components that are not centrally defined and specialised. The orientation of the certificate – whether it certifies a general (GEN) or vocational (VET) programme, or both – is provided.
Note: In Greece, students in Vocational High Schools work towards both the Ptychio and the Apolytirio.
Source: Transitions in Upper Secondary Education Certificate and Assessment mapping exercise, data collected across 2024 and 2025.
Where an assessment system does not specify the types of assessment task to be used in upper secondary certification, this might reflect a high degree of trust in teacher judgement, quality training on assessment for teachers, and perhaps mechanisms to support teacher expertise in setting assessments. This has historically been the case in Sweden. Box 3.1 discusses how teacher judgement is used for grading in Sweden.
In many systems, and in many discussions about assessment approaches, it may be assumed that assessment design that is devolved to the classroom level in this way is likely to increase the validity of the assessment (Kane and Wools, 2020[3]). The assumption about increased validity reflects that, in theory, devolving responsibility for assessment facilitates the development of tasks that are relevant for local contexts and purposes, tailored to the school, class or individual learning programme. However, if there are no explicit, system-wide policies, there is likely to be no system-wide visibility of the assessment approaches that are in use, and therefore no external checks on whether, in practice, assessments are valid. Teacher assessment that is close to the learning will, by its nature, involve multiple assessments and complex judgements, and even well-trained and well-supported teachers are unlikely to apply the kinds of validation procedures and reliability checks (see, for example, (Kane and Wools, 2020[3])) recommended by assessment specialists to ensure the validity and reliability of their assessment processes (McMillan, 2003[4]).
Chapter 2 discussed the recent national inquiry in Sweden into student grades for certification at the end of upper secondary education which are based on classroom assessment. The investigation concluded that a given grade does not represent the same level of knowledge and skills across schools, reflecting the persistent challenge for all teachers nationally to share a common interpretation of curricula expectations that leads to nationally equivalent grades across the student population (Skolverket, 2020[5]). A similar challenge has arisen in France, where, following a reform in 2018, 40% of the final baccalauréat grade is based on teachers’ classroom assessment. National research has noted an inflation in students’ grades, with some teachers feeling that the inflation is leading to grades losing their meaning (IGESR, 2023[6]); as one teacher said:
We’re all playing a big game, the higher education institutions will end up using their own entry exams1. (IGESR, 2023[6])
The absence of visibility, and of validity and reliability checks of non-specified assessment tasks and related concerns about credibility is one reason why systems tend to include only a proportion of assessments developed in this way. Often, teachers’ classroom assessments contribute a minority to the overall grade – for example, 40% in France. Of the upper secondary certification systems mapped, among those that include ‘nature of assessment task not specified’ components, 25 out of 38 combine them with other assessment components that are externally assessed (see Chapter 6 for a full description of how OECD systems design their upper secondary certificates). However, it is important to consider how marks from different tasks are combined and the overall weight given to the components which are devolved to schools to design. When certificates are entirely – or almost entirely – based on tasks developed at the teacher or school level, systems typically tend to have another, additional high-stakes assessment for entry to tertiary education. This is the case in Finland, Greece, Japan, Korea, Poland, Spain and Türkiye.
Teacher-based assessment has historically been a key feature of the Swedish education system. Teachers are expected to use national learning goals in each subject to make judgements about student achievement in the classroom to develop grades for the upper secondary certificate (Skolverket [Swedish National Agency for Education], n.d.[7]). The large teacher role in assessment may reflect a context where teachers are comparatively highly qualified and receive considerable dedicated content on assessment in initial teacher preparation (ITE). In 2022, 86% of upper secondary teachers aged 25-64 in Sweden have a Master’s degree compared to 69% on average across surveyed countries; it is obligatory for upper secondary general teachers to have at least a Master’s degree and for upper secondary vocational teachers to have at least a Bachelor’s degree (OECD, 2023[8]). Initial teacher education covers the theoretical and practical aspects of assessment such as its purposes and principles, the relationship between assessment and learning, alignment between curriculum goals and assessment and communicating the results of assessment (Yildirim et al., 2024[9]).
In Sweden, there is no national specification of the activities students must undertake or particular assessment evidence that teachers should collect in order to make their judgements for certification purposes. There is also no systemic moderation of teacher assessment judgements or determination of student grades, so teachers do not need to preserve evidence of student work to demonstrate and justify their grading decisions (although schools may organise this at a school-level). Research into teacher assessment practice in Sweden shows variation in terms of how teachers form their assessment judgements and what skills they focus on (Carmen Gómez and Jakobsson, 2015[10]). Students may also not always know exactly how and when they are being assessed (Carmen Gómez and Jakobsson, 2015[10]). In a study about teacher assessment for Physical Education, involving 355 students, only 55% of students reported that they knew when their teacher was formally assessing their knowledge and skills for upper secondary certification (Redelius and Hay, 2012[11]). At a system-level, it may also not be known whether students are being assessed via classroom tests, via their coursework or in more interactive ways. Chapter 2 discussed some of the national concerns about reliability of teacher-assessed grades in Sweden.
Source: Carmen Gómez and Jakobsson (2015[10]), “ Science Teachers’ Assessment and Grading Practices in Swedish Upper Secondary Schools” in Journal of Education and Training, Vol. 2/2, https://doi.org/10.5296/jet.v2i2.7107; Redelius and Hay (2012[11]), “ Student views on criterion-referenced assessment and grading in Swedish physical education” in Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, Vol. 17/2, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17408989.2010.548064; OECD (2023[8]), Education at a Glance 2023: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/e13bef63-en; Yildirim et al. (Yildirim et al., 2024[9]), “ Teaching Summative Assessment: A Curriculum Analysis of Pre-Service Language Teacher Education in Sweden and Finland” in Journal of Teacher Education, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00224871231214799; Skolverket [Swedish National Agency for Education] (n.d.[7])., Gymnasieskolan [High School], https://www.skolverket.se/undervisning/gymnasieskolan (accessed on 15 March 2025).
Naturally occurring evidence
In theory, assessment and learning should support each other, meaning that all assessment evidence might be generated in what feels like a natural way during the learning programme. In practice however, in many secondary education systems, assessment is felt to be a separate activity that sits outside normal learning activities. ‘Naturally occurring evidence’ was identified as an assessment component in 11 of the 71 certificates analysed for this paper. This includes vocational certificates in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (United Kingdom) as well as in Greece and Portugal. Table 3.2 lists the countries and certificates which use naturally occurring evidence as part of certification.
Notes: For the ACT Senior Secondary Certificate (ACT SSC), this category of assessment also includes observational assessment in VET courses.
BTECs are a brand of qualifications and not a specific type of qualification. BTECs are offered by Pearson, an awarding organisation. The term BTEC is often used more broadly by students, their families and schools to refer to vocational qualifications that are taken alongside A levels. However, the mapping in this report is specific to Pearson’s ‘BTEC Nationals’.
In Greece, students in Vocational High Schools work towards both the Ptychio and the Apolytirio.
In Scotland, Vocational Qualifications include National Certificates, National Progression Awards, Higher National Certificates, Higher National Diplomas, Foundation Apprenticeships.
Source: Transitions in Upper Secondary Education Certificate and Assessment mapping exercise, data collected across 2024 and 2025.
When collecting naturally occurring evidence, an assessor may continually observe a student in a given context, for example, during a work placement. During these observations, the assessor forms a judgement about the student’s knowledge, skills and understanding. In some cognate areas, the assessor may also employ product evaluation (of a cognitive or practical product), typically alongside observation. In Portugal, for the Certificado de conclusão do ensino secundário e diploma – Certificado profissional, students are assessed for the ‘on-the-job training’ part of their programme based on the work they do during this training period. Annex 3.B provides an additional example of naturally occurring evidence in vocational qualifications, with the example of Construction qualifications, offered by City & Guilds and EAL to students in Wales.
Skills, knowledge and understanding assessed
In principle, the range of skills, knowledge and understanding that can be assessed through naturally occurring evidence is not limited because there are no separate assessment methods to define. It is the ‘real world’ or ‘authentic’ nature of the evidence gathering activities that are thought to give meaning beyond the assessment itself (Drummond, Sheperis and Jones, 2020[12]; Gulikers, Bostiaens and Kirschner, 2004[13]; Hagner, 2010[14]). Naturalistic or authentic assessment are also felt to add value by being more flexible and adaptable, and to be more motivating and even enjoyable, partly because the tasks are personal to the student, and individualised in a way that other kinds of assessment tasks cannot be (Koh, 2017[15]; Joy Cumming and Maxwell, 1999[16]).
Associated challenges
The extent to which evidence is truly naturally occurring is debatable – particularly for upper secondary certification, which occurs as a scheduled, structured activity as part of formal education with clear and distinct roles for both teacher and student. Even in workplace learning situations, when the activities students undertake and the work they produce are more authentically and contextually defined, the need to engage with a certain curriculum or align learning to assessment objectives risks leading towards collecting evidence that feels contrived.
Despite these challenges, this category reflects cases when the evidence for assessment decisions is derived from learning and training activities or work, rather than the result of a discrete task. In Wales, for example, new work-based learning Construction and Building Services Engineering qualifications at ISCED 3 require students to compile around 15 pieces of evidence (which could be in a variety of forms, such as video recordings or annotated work instructions) of their performance for review by their employer and to access a final external assessment (see Annex 3.B).
As a part of the assessment process when the evidence collected is developed organically, or to add to the collection of evidence used for assessments, students may also be asked to reflect on and evaluate their own skills through student self-evaluation. Student self-evaluation may be integrated implicitly or holistically into an assessor’s evaluation, with the assessor basing their final judgement on a range of factors, including the student’s ability to reflect and evaluate their own work. Self‑evaluation may also be an explicit part of an assessment. Box 3.2 discusses the use of student self‑evaluation as part of upper secondary certificates.
Student self-evaluation can be used alongside or as part of a variety of assessment approaches, including naturally occurring evidence, portfolio assessment, project-based assessments and even written exams. Self-evaluation can be a powerful tool for linking assessment of learning with assessment for learning because it requires the student to reflect on the knowledge and skills that they have demonstrated and used in producing assessment evidence. It often comes at the end of a programme of learning or large piece of work. Given the challenges of assessing social and emotional skills in valid and reliable ways in the context of high-stakes assessments, self-evaluations might be seen as a valuable assessment approach.
Few assessments rely solely on student self-evaluation, but many include it as a requirement. For example, in the Netherlands, self-reflection is an explicit part of the central practical exams and central written exams sat by students in lower secondary vocational (VMBO) programmes and is integrated alongside project-based assessment and written exams (see Lower secondary vocational practical examinations in Annex 3.B for an explanation of how self-reflection is included in VMBO assessment). In British Columbia (Canada), students must complete a self-assessment against the system’s Core Competencies as a part of their capstone project, making this a graduation requirement for the B.C. Certificate of Graduation (Dogwood Diploma) (British Columbia Ministry of Education, n.d.[17]). All students self-reflect on their Core Competency development twice a year as part of the K-12 Student Reporting Policy update (2023) (British Columbia Ministry of Education and Child Care, 2023[18]).
Source: OECD (2023[19]), Assessing, documenting, and recognising social and emotional skills in upper secondary education: An overview of practices, approaches, models, and strategies from OECD countries, https://doi.org/10.1787/69c7abe6-en; British Columbia Ministry of Education (n.d.[17]), Developing and Supporting K-12 Student Reflection and Self-Assessment of Core Competencies, https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/assessment/developing-and-supporting-student-reflection-and-self-assessment-of-the-core-competencies.pdf (accessed 11 February 2025).
Projects and portfolios
Of the upper secondary certificates mapped for this report, 32 of the 71 certificates include a project and/or portfolio for all or some students (set out in Table 3.3). Projects and portfolio assessments are difficult to define, partly because they are often used in conjunction with each other, and the boundary between one form and another can be difficult to discern. Both projects and portfolios typically require the student to generate and collect evidence over time. In high-stakes contexts like upper secondary certification, this will often be in response to a task that has been set, although there can be varying degrees of student agency in the selection and design of this task.
Notes: In Scotland, Vocational Qualifications include National Certificates, National Progression Awards, Higher National Certificates, Higher National Diplomas, Foundation Apprenticeships.
Source: Transitions in Upper Secondary Education Certificate and Assessment mapping exercise, data collected across 2024 and 2025.
Projects
Projects may comprise tasks that require independent research skills, with the results of that research presented for assessment. Assessment judgement may focus on the process to develop the project, such as research skills, the final output, or both. In vocational settings, the project may aim to be authentic to workplace tasks, such as responding to a customer’s design brief, or producing a business plan for a defined organisation.
Skills and knowledge assessed
Projects often require the student to work independently, researching, analysing and creating. The interplay of varied knowledge and cognitive processes means that they can be one of the most useful tasks for assessing complex skills and can require all the skills in the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy: analysis, evaluation, and creation (Bloom, 1956[20]). While viewed as demanding for students, through their choice and personalisation projects can also be highly motivating and promote higher levels of achievement by developing the social-emotional competencies that contribute to general academic performance (Gill, 2016[21]). Research on the Extended Project Qualification in England suggests that project work can encourage the independent learning and study skills that are necessary for successful progression to tertiary education (discussed in Box 3.3).
Associated challenges
Each strength of project assessment comes with a related downside. Where there is flexibility, student evidence may be varied, making it difficult to standardise marking to achieve consistent and reliable judgement. Projects are also often viewed as the form of assessment most open to input by parents, tutors and other external actors, leading to a culture where malpractice may be rife (or perceived to be so). Cultural knowledge and access to resources can also advantage some students, meaning that results may reflect social advantage and disadvantage (Opposs, 2016[22]).
The Extended Project Qualification is a single piece of work that aims to assess a wide range of skills and requires a high degree of planning, preparation and autonomous working. The project is usually taken alongside the main general upper secondary qualification (A levels).
To develop and deliver their project, students are required to:
Choose an area of interest – this might develop and extend from one or more of their study areas or it could be an area of personal interest or activity outside their upper secondary studies.
Plan, research and carry out the project.
Deliver a presentation to a non-specialist audience.
Provide evidence of all stages of project development and production for assessment. All projects must produce a written report and the exact length will depend on the nature of the project and other evidence provided.
Research has found a positive relationship between the performance of students who take the Extended Project Qualification and their achievement in the country’s general upper secondary certification – A levels. Research concluded that there are specific, transferable skills that students develop while undertaking the project that they transfer to their subject-based examinations (Drummond, 2017[23]). Such skills improve students’ self-regulation, by building students’ agency and self-awareness. Research also found that the projects seem to catalyse student engagement. During the project, students are reported to make discoveries about themselves, their aptitudes and their learning preferences, enabling them to optimise their approach towards learning (Stephenson, 2019[24]).
Note: The England Project Qualification is not included in the mapping as it is not technically an A level. However, it would be considered as a ‘Project’ with ‘Some restrictions’, set and assessed by an ‘External agency’.
Source: AQA (2015[25]), Level 3 Extended Project Qualification Level 3 Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) 2013 onwards, https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/projects/level-three/projects-7993/specification (accessed on 7 July 2025); Drummond (2017[23]), Extending into the Future: How extended project work can help prepare students for success at school, at university and in the careers of tomorrow, https://www.oxfordaqa.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/OxdordAQA_Extending-into-the-Future_Digital_Singles.pdf (accessed on 12 July 2025); Stephenson (2019[24]), “The role of the Extended Project Qualification in developing self‐regulated learners: exploring students’ and teachers’ experiences” in The Curriculum Journal, Vol. 30/4, https://doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2019.1646665.
Portfolios
Portfolios tend to be collections of work, usually collected over a period of time. For that reason, in some systems this form of gathering assessment evidence is called coursework. Pieces of evidence within a portfolio may be diverse in nature and may take written, visual, electronic or product form. The context, content and conditions for gathering evidence may be open, or there may be requirements that constrain one or more of these. In some education systems, the evidence in the portfolio is required to be representative or typical of the student’s work, while in others, the work in the portfolio may be encouraged to be the student’s ‘latest and best’. Portfolios can be viewed as removing the pressure of a one-off examination and may be perceived as less stressful for students. Students are likely to be given some agency in collating the portfolio.
Skills and knowledge assessed
In theory, portfolios of work can be used to assess any aspect of skills, knowledge and understanding, especially where that is developed and assessed over the course of a programme of study. In practice, portfolios tend to be used where the learning process involves the student carrying out the same sort of activity on multiple occasions. Both ‘latest and best’ and ‘typical’ approaches presuppose that the piece(s) of evidence gathered in the portfolio are not one-offs, but represent points in the student’s development of knowledge, skills and understanding and reflect what they would be continue to be able to do going forward. Portfolios may also be used where the student has to carry out a range of differing but related activities, which together allow an overall evaluation of competency, as a range of evidence may be required to justify the student has met the breadth of the assessment criteria (Brown, 2002[26]).
Associated challenges
Like project work, portfolio contents may vary widely, and so achieving consistency and reliability in marking/judging may be difficult. Manageability may also be an issue, especially if there are defined requirements for the pieces of evidence to be included in the portfolio: both teachers and students may feel pressure to ensure that each of these boxes is ticked early in the programme, to avoid a stressful ‘logjam’ of assessment near the end of the course of learning (Colwill, 2007[27]). Students might feel pressure for every piece of work to be their best work, and experience this as stressful, feeling that they are never free from worrying about their work being assessed. Students who are absent from the classroom for part of the programme may find it difficult to catch up.
Practical activities and performance assessments
Over half – 39 out of 71 – of certificates analysed for this report include a practical activity or performance assessment component (Table 3.4). Practical activities and performances may require students to complete an activity or demonstrate different aspects of performance skills on a single occasion. The category ‘practical activities or performance assessments’ also include oral exams. For example, in Italy, as a part of the oral exam, students give a presentation about their ‘school-work training’ or internship. Whether or not an oral exam is delivered as a practical activity or performance often depends on the subject. In Austria, in music and arts subjects oral exams may take the form of performances or practical activities. Likewise, in Denmark, only some subjects, such as media, include a practical activity as a part of the final exam.
Notes: For the ACT Senior Secondary Certificate (ACT SSC), practical activities and performances are included for some subjects (e.g. Physical Education, Music, English, Art etc.) that have performance or practical requirements.
In Greece, students in Vocational High Schools work towards both the Ptychio and the Apolytirio.
BTECs are a brand of qualifications and not a specific type of qualification. BTECs are offered by Pearson, an awarding organisation. The term BTEC is often used more broadly by students, their families and schools to refer to vocational qualifications that are taken alongside A levels. However, the mapping in this report is specific to Pearson’s ‘BTEC Nationals’.
In Scotland, Vocational Qualifications include National Certificates, National Progression Awards, Higher National Certificates, Higher National Diplomas, Foundation Apprenticeships.
Source: Transitions in Upper Secondary Education Certificate and Assessment mapping exercise, data collected across 2024 and 2025.
Performance activities
Performances are an assessment of skills that are ephemeral and cannot be easily captured and judged except by an examiner who watches the assessment activity live, such as oral skills in foreign languages or, in some cases, via a recording.
Skills and knowledge assessed
Performances and practical activities assess ephemeral skills that cannot be captured through other types of assessment tasks. This includes artistic performance skills in arts subjects such as drama, music and dance and physical performance skills in sports and physical activities.
As well as capturing the specific skills demonstrated during a performance or activity, performances can also capture other skills related to planning, reflection on, and evaluation of, a student’s own performance. Such evidence may be gathered through written pieces or students may be asked questions orally by the assessor, as is the case in Slovenia with the product/service exam and defence (see Box 3.4).
Associated challenges
Performances are a resource-intensive form of assessment that requires sophisticated planning and logistical arrangements, especially to quality assure the assessment. The assessor’s role may be an intense and cognitively difficult one, especially if they have to assess several individuals performing in a group. Technology may be used to try to alleviate some of these issues: for example, video or audio recordings may be used as a proxy for the live performance or may be used in quality assurance of assessment judgements.
Whether the performances are assessed by the students’ own teachers or by an external examiner, standardising assessor judgement is difficult and may be time-consuming and costly. Quality assurance of assessor judgement may concentrate on systems and processes rather than on the quality of the students’ work (Daly et al., 2009[28]).
In Slovenia, the product/service exam and defence are a key part of the vocational matura. Depending on their vocational specialisation, over the course of the year, students develop a product or deliver a service to demonstrate the practical skills they have acquired from their programme. In addition to this practical component, students undergo a defence where they present their product or service and are asked questions by the assessment board. In the defence, students must justify how they went about the practical activity as well as their compliance with occupational health and safety and environmental protection regulations. Students are expected to use professional terminology and be persuasive in their explanations and justifications. Annex 3.B provides more detail and an example of the product/service exam.
Being able to use professional terminology and to critically justify and explain the steps taken while developing a product or delivering a service is an important and transferable skill for the workplace. By assessing students on this, in a high-stakes context where they need to perform, the assessment aims to signal their readiness for employment.
Source: Transitions in Upper Secondary Education Certificate and Assessment mapping exercise, data collected across 2024 and 2025; Eurydice (2025[29]), “Assessment in upper secondary education” in Slovenia, https://eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/eurypedia/slovenia/assessment-upper-secondary-education (accessed on 26 May 2025).
Practical activities
Practical activities refer to assessment tasks where the student is required to use technical, creative or artistic skills, usually in relation to physical equipment, materials and artefacts. Some sort of physical manipulation of equipment and materials is likely to be required. Often there will be a defined product of the practical activity and assessment judgements may focus on the practical process, the quality of developed product, or both. Box 3.5 shows how practical Contrôle en cours de formation in the French Professional Aptitude Certificate supports continued progression and development.
Skills and knowledge assessed
Practical activities provide the opportunity to assess practical applications of skills, for example artistic skills, food preparation and cooking skills or practical craft skills for woodworking, metalworking, textiles, etc. In general education, such assessments enable the demonstration of practical or experimental skills in science and engineering subjects, or digital skills in subjects like design, photography and computer science (Doole, 2023[30]). Practical activities may feel like more authentic assessment experiences and students may find them motivating and engaging. Such assessments may also enable students who are not confident in written tasks to demonstrate their skills.
Associated challenges
While there is often a product to be judged, that product may be perishable, fragile or bulky, making it difficult or impossible to transport. This can mean that practical activities suffer from the same sort of issues with assessment and quality assurance that performance assessment does: assessment often has to be done live in situ, making assessment decisions difficult to standardise and quality assurance a relatively superficial process.
To try to alleviate the problems of standardising judgements, requirements for the activity may be tightly specified, perhaps to the point where it becomes a practical examination, carried out under tightly controlled conditions. One downside of such attempts to standardise the task can be that the assessment becomes predictable, resulting in ‘teaching to the test’ that narrows the curriculum so that students do not learn valued skills. An example of the latter was the assessment of science practical skills in GCSEs in England, where successive policy attempts to re-design assessment of valued practical skills led to the implementation of a small number of assessment tasks, in which teachers played safe in their choice of task so as to try to maximise assessment results, and awarding organisations provided increasingly prescriptive instructions with a view to safeguarding reliability. Taken together, these actions reduced the breadth and relevance of the assessment tasks to current views of how scientific investigations are conducted (Childs, 2020[31]).
Within the Professional Aptitude Certificate, which is part of vocational upper secondary education in France, students experience ‘contrôle en cours de formation’ (CCF) or in-training assessment. This assessment is a requirement for certification and verifies that students can demonstrate their skills outside of exams and in authentic training contexts. Contrôle en cours de formation also supports students’ continued progression and development because assessment takes place part-way through the training phase so students receive feedback to further develop before final exams.
Contrôle en cours de formation is meant to take place once students have reached the required level or standard. This means that not all students in a group will be assessed at the same point in time. Formative observations and assessments should inform trainers about students’ readiness for assessment. This approach aims to supports motivation, as students are assessed once they have built confidence in their skills and the assessment can give them a roadmap for t further skills they can still develop.
Source: EDUSCOL (n.d.[32]), Contrôle en cours de formation [Assessment during training], https://eduscol.education.fr/785/controle-en-cours-de-formation (accessed on 25 March 2025). https://eduscol.education.fr/785/controle-en-cours-de-formation (accessed on 25 March 2025).
Assessment activities with unseen questions/tasks
This category includes assessments of knowledge and skills when the tasks or questions are unseen, i.e. tests or examinations. Assessment activities with unseen tasks are the most common type of assessment task observed across those mapped for this report (included within 59 of the 71 certificates) (listed in Table 3.5). The vast majority of general certificates analysed (40 out of 45) include an assessment component categorised as activity with unseen questions/tasks, and almost three quarters of vocational certificates (25 out of 34) also include an assessment component of this type2.
Written tests and examinations have dominated the assessment of academic knowledge and skills for a long stretch of history because they bring a range of benefits for the assessment policy maker. They are a cost-effective and efficient way to assess a large body of knowledge and skills; test design typically samples across the domain of learning and so tests do not assess all aspects of learning on every occasion. Tests and examinations can be used to assess a wide range of types of knowledge and skills, ranging from recall of a (sometimes large) body of information, to demonstrating understanding of complex texts or issues, as well as higher order skills like applying knowledge and skills to interpret, analyse and solve problems (Kellaghan and Greaney, 2020[33]). However, exams are often high-pressure and high-stress events and are often criticised for creating distance between the theoretical curriculum and what ultimately gets taught and for being an inauthentic way of assessing students’ skills.
Chapter 1 discusses the challenges of high-stakes exams, notably the absence of authenticity, context dependency and predictability which can lead to criticisms that they encourage ‘teaching to the test’, rote rather than deep learning and undue stress for students (The Times, 2022[34]; Woods, 2024[35]). In practice, examinations always involve trade-offs between advantages and potential risks (Harold, 1989[36]). Items within the test or exam may take a number of forms, which can be classified in terms of the type of response required; these are discussed below.
Notes: In Belgium (Flemish Community), starting from the cohort of students who will take the last two years of upper secondary school (i.e. the third grade) in 2026-2027, pupils in the last year (i.e. the second year of the third grade) will sit Flemish tests.
In Greece, students in Vocational High Schools work towards both the Ptychio and the Apolytirio.
BTECs are a brand of qualifications and not a specific type of qualification. BTECs are offered by Pearson, an awarding organisation. The term BTEC is often used more broadly by students, their families and schools to refer to vocational qualifications that are taken alongside A levels. However, the mapping in this report is specific to Pearson’s ‘BTEC Nationals’.
In Scotland, Vocational Qualifications include National Certificates, National Progression Awards, Higher National Certificates, Higher National Diplomas, Foundation Apprenticeships.
Source: Transitions in Upper Secondary Education Certificate and Assessment mapping exercise, data collected across 2024 and 2025.
Objective questions or items
Items are known as ‘objective’ items when the student has to select a response rather than create it. The most common and well-known objective item is probably the multiple-choice item. These consist of a stem in the form of a question or incomplete statement, then a number of alternative answers. When well-constructed, objective items are quick and easy to mark accurately, and results can be returned to the student quickly. For digital exams, multi-choice items may include a range of multimedia materials e.g. animations, short films, spoken text in a foreign language, audio recording of music.
Skills and knowledge assessed
In general, objective questions, especially multiple choice, are good for assessing a large body of knowledge efficiently. While objective items may be perceived as assessing only factual recall, they can assess a range of cognitive skills. Well-constructed objective items can assess some of the more complex skills in Bloom’s taxonomy (see Chapter 1), such as reasoning and analysis, and comprehension of complex texts.
Associated challenges
Poorly worded objective items may include ambiguous stems or some implausible (and therefore obviously wrong) answers, leading to questions that have more than one correct answer, are impossible to answer, or are easy to guess: all of these invalidate the item.
Short answer or restricted response items
Short answer items tend to involve predetermined responses and can take several forms such as the student supplying a word or short phrase. The question may only use words, but can also use diagrams, graphs and numbers. In restricted response items the student’s response may be a bit longer, perhaps a sentence, and there may be a little more flexibility for the student to respond in their own words. Both of these types of items can be used to assess a domain of knowledge efficiently. Students may experience these items as more straightforward or less stressful than questions that require them to construct a response in their own words.
Skills and knowledge assessed
While both these item types may focus on assessing factual recall, they can be used to assess cognitive skills. They are commonly used to assess application and reasoning in mathematics and science. For example, when assessing knowledge of practical skills through a test, the student may be presented with a diagram of equipment and asked to label the parts or name the functions of different parts. A restricted response item might ask the student to state the consequences of making a change to the apparatus, assessing their understanding of its functions and their ability to make reasoned deductions about changes to the apparatus.
Associated challenges
Although both short answer and restricted response questions can be used to assess understanding and reasoning, in practice, they tend to be used to cover less cognitively demanding aspects of a domain of knowledge. Poorly worded items, especially those including illustrations or contextual information, may mislead the student and invalidate the item. Marking instructions must also be clear so that all assessors understand what variations of response should, and should not, be given credit.
Extended response items
Extended response items require the student to construct an answer, usually in continuous prose. The response may consist of a few short paragraphs to a full essay. Particularly for subjects like national language and literature or history, where students are expected to link ideas and critically engage with texts, extended response items are often seen as the best or only way to assess higher order cognitive skills. As evidenced in Box 3.6 with Norway’s exam in the Norwegian language, extended response items also push back against one of the traditional criticisms of exams; that exams leave little space for students’ own unique ideas and thoughts, with students needing to learn and memorise lots of content, particularly the ideas and knowledge of others.
A key consideration that affects the construct of the assessment is what tools and resources students are able to use and draw on. If students know they can bring in notes or a book or access the internet during the exam, they would likely prepare and study for the exam differently than if it is strictly closed-book. For example, there would be less of a need to memorise quotes when writing about literature. This consideration is particularly important in light of Artificial Intelligence advancements. If students have free access to the internet, then this includes online digital tools, including AI, which may be used by students to develop answers that result in a better grade than what they – or others in society – think they would have otherwise got. Norway, a system which, for the last 20 years has allowed relatively open exams, is now limiting the number of websites which students can access during the exam and limiting the amount of pre-prepared content students can bring into the exam; a middle-ground approach that is being welcomed by some teachers (Ulvestad, 2025[37]). How countries regulate or manage student use of AI, and arguments for and against, is further discussed in Chapter 4.
Another consideration is how to minimise construct-irrelevant mode effects from typing and handwriting (for both students and marking bodies). Research on typing in an assessment context shows that typing supports and inhibits slightly different composing skills and cognitive behaviours than handwriting does (Van der Weel and Van der Meer, 2023[38]). There is evidence that students with fluency in the examined language tend to find it easier to compose longer texts and attain passing grades more frequently when typing rather than handwriting (Sumner, 2023[39]). On the other hand, there is evidence that students find integrated (multi-step, multi-source, or multi-media) writing tasks easier with handwriting than typing and that the quality of their synthesis is deeper when handwriting, as well as their ability to respond if they are not first-language speakers of the examined language (OECD, Forthcoming[40]).
In the main Norwegian language exam paper, students have to respond to one text with a ‘short’ response, and then they have a choice between three different series of prompts for their ‘long’ response answer. In 2025, for the spring exam session, one of the three options featured a speech, “Welcome home!”, given in 2023 by the Former Minister of Labour and Inclusion, Marte Mjøs Persen (2023, September 3). The speech was given at a ceremony for new citizens of Norway. Students were asked to interpret the speech, referencing language techniques.
Exam items such as this can create space for students to explore concepts like identity and belonging and to critically engage with political language, for example, to discuss how political language is used to create a collective construct of citizenship.
Note: An excerpt of the speech, “Welcome home!” is provided at Short answer and extended response items in Annex 3.B.
Sources: Utdanningsdirektoratet (2025[41]), NOR1270 - Norwegian main language, upper secondary school level 3 extension to general university entrance qualification, written, https://kandidat.udir.no/epsmateriell/eksamen?fagkode=nor1270&malform=nn-no&semester=v&ar=2025&eksamensdeltype=eksamen (accessed on 12 November 2025); Mjøs Persen (2023[42]), Velkommen hjem! [Welcome home!], https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/velkommen-hjem/id2992901/ (accessed on 12 November 2025).
Skills and knowledge assessed
Extended response items are often used to assess complex cognitive skills like synthesis and analysis, including the ability to reason and structure an argument. The student has control over the evidence they cite to support their arguments, and so the depth of their understanding can be assessed. Originality of thought may be rewarded. Extended responses are also used as part of project assessment, often in the form of a report on the activity.
Associated challenges
It is both a strength and a weakness of extended response items that they require the student to construct a response (usually in writing) in their own words. This provides scope for students to express their views in their own way, but if writing skills are not part of the construct to be assessed, then there are risks to the validity of the assessment (SQA, 2008[43]). For some students, the requirement to write at length may prevent them from being able to show what they know and understand, jeopardising the fairness of the assessment. Particularly in an age when technology is easily available, students may experience the requirement to write at length by hand as inauthentic or irrelevant to life and work. Accessibility concerns are prevalent across all types of tests and exams, but particularly for short and long answer response items. Here, digital technologies, particularly as they are being used more frequently in the classroom, also support the provision – and scaling up – of accommodations for students with Special Education Needs (SEN). The most common accommodations include the ability to type rather than write, the assistance of a helper, and speech-to-text accommodations.
Chapter 1 of this paper noted the risks of predictability in examinations, and it is in extended response questions that predictability can have the greatest effect, potentially allowing students to memorise a set answer. For example, in one study investigating predictability in the Irish Leaving Certificate, students mentioned the ability to ‘spot’ questions and learn set essays in literature assessments (Baird, 2016[44]).
Table 3.6 summarises the skills and knowledge where different assessment tasks are most effective at and the related challenges.
No task enables a full assessment of all the skills that matter
It is expected that over the course of upper secondary education, students will develop higher order cognitive skills, practical skills that they can apply in authentic contexts as well as a range of social and emotional skills like independent working and time management. To verify that students have developed these skills and to measure the extent of their development, assessment is needed. The different assessment formats discussed in this chapter and set out in Table 3.6 can, in theory, assess a range of skills (as discussed in Chapter 1) and each format brings different strengths for assessing knowledge, skills and understanding. However, no single assessment format can be expected to effectively assess the full range of knowledge, skills and understanding that upper secondary certificates seek to cover. While a written exam may assess a student’s ability to analyse rhetorical devices in speech-writing (see the example in Annex 3.Bfor Norway), it is only when actually delivering a speech that a student’s skill at employing such devices can be assessed. Upper secondary certificates need to combine a range of assessment tasks within an overall certificate to balance the relative merits of different tasks, compensate for their weaknesses and assess the full breadth of the skills that matter. A certificate solely based or dominated by one type of task risks assessing a limited range of knowledge, skills and understanding. Certificates based or dominated by a single task will also struggle to achieve the principles of credibility, relevance, fairness and manageability.
Tests and exams support efficient assessment of a wide range of knowledge, understanding and skills, including the most complex skills
Tests and exams with unseen tasks have broadly dominated high-stakes assessments for centuries. These assessments face significant criticism in terms of their potential to become predicable, create inauthentic environments, not capture some of the most critical skills like evaluation, and crucially miss the complex interplay of different skills and knowledge that individuals need to succeed in real life (as discussed in Chapter 1). However, tests and exams can efficiently assess a range of knowledge, skills and understanding, and potentially assess higher order, complex skills. Given one of the key functions of upper secondary certificates as a selection tool, tests and exams represent a cost-efficient approach to objectively assess the full cohort. While these assessments can feel inauthentic and predicable, in reality the need to quickly recall, synthesise and construct answers is a demand that young people will encounter in higher education and work. Exposing students to this demand and providing opportunities to hone these skills remains an important feature of both upper secondary education and its assessment.
Projects, portfolios and performances can potentially support the valid assessment of more practical skills and performance skills
Portfolios, projects, performances and naturally occurring evidence are all distinct tasks yet share the common trait that they tend to be relatively authentic and provide valid ways to assess the application and demonstration of some skills – especially practical skills. Together, these non-exam tasks represent a considerable share of the tasks in certificates mapped for this report; 56 out of 142 assessment components across the 65 certificates are delivered as either projects and portfolios and/or practical activities and performances. Such assessments can also be highly valuable to support the inclusivity of assessments so that students who do not excel in tests and exams – perhaps because they struggle with written content, time-pressured contexts or have specific educational needs – can demonstrate their skills and capabilities. Yet, projects, portfolios and activities can be highly resource intensive, especially when investments are made to assure their reliability, such as investing significantly in assessor training and moderation.
Few tasks directly assess social and emotional skills
Few assessment tasks can directly assess social and emotional skills at present. Projects, portfolios, performances and naturally occurring evidence provide the greatest scope among tasks to directly observe such skills. However, almost all tasks will provide some indirect assessment of social and emotional skills. Even in written tests and exams, social and emotional skills linked to task performance, such as perseverance and motivation, are correlated with stronger performance (OECD, 2024[45]).
There are several reasons why systems do not have direct assessments of social and emotional skills at present. One is that social and emotional skills are developed across multiple contexts, of which school is only one (OECD, 2024[45]). While this the case for all skills and knowledge, the richness and depth of opportunities for social and emotional learning beyond the classroom seems inherently greater than for traditional school subjects like physics or history. For high-stakes assessments, this can raise questions of equity around the extent to which all young people have experienced comparable opportunities to develop such skills. A second is the variation in how social and emotional skills are manifested by different individuals and are valued across different cultures and backgrounds (OECD, 2024[45]). In the context of the high stakes associated with upper secondary certificates, the variability of social and emotional skills can make it difficult for systems to agree on valid constructs and assessments. However, research and advances in measuring social and emotional skills in cross national settings for system-monitoring purposes (for example (OECD, 2024[45]) may provide important advances in the future for greater explicit inclusion and even direct assessment of social and emotional skills.
The functioning of an assessment task is hugely influenced by its design
While research and country experiences reveal a great deal about the merits and challenges associated with different tasks, both are also shaped by a task’s design. Exams and tests vary widely in how effective they are in assessing different sets of skills. Some closed answer questions can provide highly effective measure of complex skills like evaluation, while others can reward simple guessing. Similarly, a well-designed performance of science or cooking skills might provide a highly authentic observation of the complex interaction of higher order cognitive skills, practical skills knowledge, creativity and adaptability. Yet, such assessments also have the potential to be ineffective and unfair with each assessment event differing widely across assessors and being dependent on individual assessor’s professional capability. Chapters 4-5 address some of the issues around how individual tasks are designed by focusing on the conditions and responsibility for assessments.
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Estyn (2022[50]), Effective approaches to assessment that improve teaching and learning, https://estyn.gov.wales/improvement-resources/effective-approaches-to-assessment-that-improve-teaching-and-learning/ (accessed on 16 December 2025)
Gray and Wiseman-Orr (2025[51]), Classroom Assessment for Teachers: Turning Principles into Practice, Routledge, London, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003564478
Looney and Kelly (2023[52]), Assessing learners’ competences: policies and practices to support successful and inclusive education: Thematic Report, European Commission: Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, Publications Office, Publications Office of the European Union. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2766/221856 (accessed on 21 November 2024).
Construction qualifications
In 2018, Qualifications Wales published a review of vocational qualifications in construction and the built environment, Building the Future. Following this review, and a consultation, Qualifications Wales developed regulatory criteria for a suite of new qualifications and commissioned an awarding body consortium to develop them (following a fair and open procurement process).
In designing this new suite of qualifications, Qualifications Wales sought to address issues which had been identified during the review, by:
reducing the overall amount of assessment
promoting more reliability within the assessment approaches
enhancing the validity of assessments
enabling graded outcomes and
enhancing the role of employers in the training and assessment of apprentices.
There are currently 20 qualifications in this suite (with more to be added in the coming years), including those which are used by learners in full-time further education, and those on work-based learning apprenticeships. The new suite differs from previous qualifications because it takes a sampling approach to assessment rather than a full-coverage one. Each qualification is assessed by a mixture of:
on-screen testing
practical project performance (including planning and reviewing) and
discussion.
The qualifications used in work-based learning, known as Construction (Level 3) or Building Services Engineering (Level 3) qualifications, have an additional feature, which is titled the Employer Confirmation Guide. The Employer Confirmation Guide process sees learners logging evidence of their performance of the national standards in their occupational specialisms, for review by their employer. Learners are guided to compile around 15 pieces of evidence (which could be in a variety of forms, such as video recordings or annotated work instructions) before it is reviewed by their employer. When an employer considers the evidence to be representative of proficiency in the profession, a learner is able to access their final assessment – a professional discussion, conducted by an external assessor (appointed by the awarding body).
The professional discussion allows learners to evaluate their planning and performance of their practical project, how the project might have been approached differently if working in a different context (e.g. on a building constructed in a different period or from different materials) and communicating and working effectively with others.
Lower secondary vocational practical examinations
As part of national examinations for the lower secondary vocational (VMBO), students taking the theoretical or combined theoretical/practical version of the programme sit central practical examinations that include self-reflection components.
While called an exam, the assessment includes several different aspects. For example, for visual arts subjects (drawing, manual labour, textile work, audiovisual design) students would design and create an autonomous or applied piece of work. This would include collecting sketches, sample notes and completing a logbook every time they work on their design. The examination paper, which students have access to right from the start of the project, acts as a workbook and guides students through the idea generation phase, undertaking research, establishing a design, analysing changes made to the original design and a self-reflection.
As a part of the self-reflection, students are prompted to write about what they are more less excited and enthusiastic (Annex Figure 3.B.1 shows the self-reflection component of the exam). They also review the presentation and design of their work. Students are also asked to analyse, evaluate and assess another student’s work i.e. responding to questions such as “are the aspects of design (visual aspects, materials, techniques) well chosen and employed to achieve the goals of the assignment?”
Source: Exam VMBO-GL (combined pathway) and TL (theoretical pathway) 2024, Visual arts subjects CPE GL (combined pathway) and TL (theoretical pathway), https://www.examenblad.nl/2024/vmbo-tl/vakken/kunstvakken-lo/beeldende-vorming-vmbo-gl-tl (accessed October 2025).
Project work in colleges for higher vocational education
For students attending a vocational education programme in a business school, they can do project work on set topics, such as “Austrian Investments in Eastern and Western Africa: Impact, Activities, Opportunities and Trade Agreements” or “Analysis of China’s Effect on the Economy in Eastern and Western Africa”.
Annex Table 3.B.1 shows the learning goals and activities of these two hypothetical project work topics.
Portfolio assessment of Visual Arts
Students in New Zealand working towards the National Certificates of Education Achievement (NCEA) can take several visual arts subjects, including Visual Arts, Painting, Photography, Design, Printmaking and Sculpture. At NCEA Levels 2 and 3, each subject includes an externally-assessed portfolio, worth 12 credits at NCEA Level 2 and 14 credits at NCEA Level 3. The 12-credit externally-assessed portfolio represents a substantial number of the credits typically available to students in their arts subject, and also a substantial number of the credits needed to pass NCEA. Students need 80 credits to achieve an NCEA certificate at each level: 60 credits at that level or above, plus the 20 credit literacy and numeracy co-requisite.
At NCEA Level 3, for Design, Painting, Photography and Printmaking, students are to produce a portfolio of individual student-level evidence consisting of either a physical three-panel portfolio (on a folio board) or a digital (moving image) portfolio. Only a digitally submitted portfolio can be submitted for Sculpture. Student work is expected to be developed between January and November of the year of submission (i.e. from the start to the end of the school calendar year). The achievement criteria for the Painting externally-assessed portfolio is reproduced in Annex Table 3.B.2.
Students are required to disclose the use of generative AI. This requires a clear and detailed description of how AI has been integrated in the visual arts practice including the tools, the role, and specific tasks performed by AI, and the extent to which AI has contributed to the final artwork. Students must identify the specific AI software used in the creation of the artwork and describe the functions performed by AI, whether in generating visual elements, assisting with composition, or enhancing existing artwork (New Zealand Qualifications Authority, 2025[53]).
Source: New Zealand Qualifications Authority (2016[54]), Achievement Standards AS91456, https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/nqfdocs/ncea-resource/achievements/2019/as91456.pdf (accessed on 10 November 2025)
The Achieved criteria involves bringing conventions together to revisit ideas from the student’s previous work in order to re-form and extend ideas into new work. The Achieved with Merit criteria involves the informed selection and considered combination of particular conventions to select, revisit and refine ideas from the student’s previous work in order to re-form and extend ideas into new work and achieve an intended outcome. The Achieved with Excellence criteria involves bringing together critically selected ideas and methods from different sources to integrate the conventions and to critically revisit and refine ideas from the student’s previous work in order to re-form and provide options for the extension of ideas into new work and achieve an intended outcome.
Examples of student work towards this, and similarly externally-assessed portfolio standards, can be seen in the NZQA Top Art exhibition.
Project work, practice investigations and research studies in Ireland
A range of subjects for the Leaving Certificate now include ‘Practice Projects’, ‘Investigative Studies’, ‘Practice Investigations’ and ‘Research Studies’. Including:
Drama, Film and Theatre Studies
Climate Action and Sustainable Development
Business
Biology
Chemistry
Physics
Ancient Greek
Latin
For example, the Creativity in Practice Project for Drama, Film and Theatre Studies is weighted 50%. A brief for the conduct of the Creativity in Practice Project is published annually by the State Examinations Commission (SEC) in Term 2 of Year 1.
The brief will:
include stimulus material to set a context for the project
provide specific prompts to guide students in the development of their project work
allow students to develop their thinking and ideas on areas they would like to pursue, related to the brief
facilitate teachers and students in their planning
allow students to develop materials and acquire resources that they can draw upon as they complete their project.
During the course of their project work each student will develop a project journal. The structure of the project journal, and other details necessary for its completion, will be laid out in the brief issued by the State Examinations Commission. The brief will also include stimulus material and provide prompts to scaffold and direct the focus of students’ project work. In order to spread the project workload, students should engage with their project journal on a regular basis as they work through each stage of their project.
Each student will be required to select two minutes of continuous video footage suitable to support and illustrate their response to a prompt or prompts in the brief. The footage will be taken from either their short piece of film as screened, or from a live recording of their short piece of theatre, as performed for an audience.
Students will be required to develop and submit a project journal as part of their Drama, Film and Theatre Studies Creativity in Practice Project. The project journal will be presented in a digital format prescribed by the State Examinations Commission (SEC). All work completed as part of the Creativity in Practice Project must be concluded by a set date. This date will be set by the SEC and communicated to schools and will also be included in the brief that issues in Term 2 of Year 1 of the course.
Seminar paper and defence
During the production of a product or the provision of a service, candidates demonstrate the practical skills and competences acquired in one or more of the professional modules. The exam assesses the professional and general competences students have acquired. The production of the product or service is the practical part of the examination, which culminates in a defence.
Students choose the topic of the examination paper in agreement with their tutor, in accordance with the examination catalogue, and you coordinate with their tutor in the preparation of the paper. With the help of the tutor, the candidate decides on the way the product or service is to be performed by means of a defence.
Based on the set task, in collaboration with their mentor, students gather information, materials and design a product or service with all the elements of a workflow. Students are expected to document the whole assignment and submit the documentation within the deadline.
The product or service accounts for 80% of the grade. The defence shall comprise a 20 % share of the grade.
The defence consists of two parts: demonstration of the manufacture of a product or provision of a service; and expert defence. In the defence, students must justify the use of the building blocks, tools and processes for the product or service provided, and their compliance with occupational health and safety and environmental protection regulations for the product produced or service provided. Students are to use professional terminology in their defence and be persuasive.
Annex Box 3.B.1 provides an example of an assessment task activity students might be given.
Instructions to the applicant for the construction of a home alarm system:
The applicant should build on existing systems to create a home alarm system. The candidate should study the systems and review their operation. In the first part, the candidate should write down the algorithm of operation of the home alarm system and its components. The candidate should study in detail the operation of the sensors. In the second part, the candidate should build a model of a house and install different sensors on the windows and doors of the house. He/she connects everything together to the chosen control. In the third part, the candidate tests the sensors, writes the corresponding program and tests it. Finally, the project documentation must be prepared, covering all the previous parts of the task. Be consistent, economical, resourceful and creative in your work, taking into account the time constraints of the project.
Note: Sample assessment items sent by email to the Transitions in Upper Secondary Education team.
Source: © Slovenia National Examinations Centre, 2024. All rights reserved.
Written and digital exams
Written and digital exams in Lithuania can include a range of question types. Annex Figure 3.B.2,Annex Figure 3.B.3 and Annex Figure 3.B.4 show examples of question types included in the exam of English, Physics and History.
As shown in Annex Figure 3.B.2, students may be confronted with extended response item questions.
Source: Matura final English exam. Main Session, 2025, Nacionalinė švietimo agentūra. Į 45–56 klausimus atsakykite remdamiesi šaltiniais A, B, C, D ir E (accessed on 22 October 2025).
A shown in Annex Figure 3.B.3, students may be presented with an interactive task where they have to simulate the necessary actions according to the provided description.
Source: Matura Intermediate examination. Physics. Main Session, 2025, Nacionalinė švietimo agentūra. BETA ITS | Informacinė elektroninio testavimo sistema (accessed on 22 October 2025).
As shown in Annex Figure 3.B.4, multi-choice questions may also be used. The example shown in Annex Figure 3.B.4 also relies on multimedia, with students having to correctly answer a question based on the image presented.
Source: Matura Intermediate examination. History. Main Session, 2025, Nacionalinė švietimo agentūra. BETA ITS | Informacinė elektroninio testavimo sistema (accessed 22 October 2025).
Short answer and extended response items
In the main Norwegian language exam paper, students have to respond to one text with a ‘short’ response, and then they have a choice between three different series of prompts for their ‘long’ response answer.
In 2025, for the spring exam session, for the short answer task, students were presented with an excerpt from the opening of a novel describing a flood. The flood described in the novel was a real event in Norway that occurred in 2014. Students are asked to write between 250 and 300 words.
The task: Explain some of the devices used and their function in the text.
Students are told that their answer will be assessed in the following areas:
answer to the assignment
demonstrates understanding of the attached text
includes examples
uses relevant technical terminology
structure and coherence
language and formal skills
For the long answer task, students choose between three different possible tasks. One task is based on a speech, ‘Welcome home!’, given by Marte Mjøs Persen, the former Minister of Labour and Inclusion, at a ceremony for new citizens of Norway in 2023.
The task: Interpret the speech. Use rhetorical devices.
Students are told that their answer will be assessed in the following areas:
answer to the assignment
demonstrates understanding of the attached text
explains the rhetorical situation
explains the use of forms of appeal
explains the means of expression and how they work in the text
has examples and relevant technical language
structure and coherence
language and formal skills
The speech is reproduced on Regjeringen.no, the official government website, and an excerpt (Translated into English using Deepl) is provided in Annex Box 3.B.2.
Dear new citizens of Norway.
Now you belong here!
You belong in this country where the summers are so bright that it is almost impossible to sleep at night, and the winters are so dark that it is almost impossible to stay awake during the day.
You belong in this part of the world where we battle our way through the rain with leaky raincoats and umbrellas that twist and turn in the gusts of wind – but we shake our wet heads vigorously and for a long time if anyone dares to say that it is better to live elsewhere.
You belong to this group of people with strange dialects and strange intonations, where it can be difficult to understand the language – except that everyone always says that everything is very nice and very cosy.
Dear everyone.
You have come to Norway for different reasons.
Some of you came to escape war and persecution.
And some of you came to be reunited with family.
Some of you came to share your life with the person you love.
And some of you came to work.
The fact that you belong here does not mean that this is the only place you belong.
You have roots elsewhere in the world.
Many of you miss places and countries where the nights are not so bright, the days are not so dark and raincoats and umbrellas are rarely needed.
These roots are an important part of your identity – and will remain so even if you have found a new home.
These roots give you an insight and a perspective that make Norway a richer country.
Source: Mjøs Persen (2023[42]), Velkommen hjem! [Welcome home!], https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/velkommen-hjem/id2992901/.
← 1. On joue tous une grande comédie, le sup finira par mettre des examens d’entrée.
← 2. The number of general certificates and vocational certificates does not add to 71 (the sum total of certificates analysed for this report) as some certificates are used for both general and vocational education e.g. Italy’s Diploma d'istruzione secondaria di secondo grado [Secondary School Diploma].