Entire Assessment Process Research Articles

Occupational health risk assessment of PC production-caused pollution based on damage assessment and cyclic mitigation model

PurposeThe occupational health risk associated with the production of prefabricated concrete components is often overlooked. This paper will use a damage assessment and cyclic mitigation (DACM) model to provide individualized exposure risk assessment and corresponding mitigation management measures for workers who are being exposed.Design/methodology/approachThe DACM model is proposed based on the concept of life cycle assessment (LCA). The model uses Monte-Carlo simulation for uncertainty risk assessment, followed by quantitative damage assessment using disability-adjusted life year (DALY). Lastly, sensitivity analysis is used to identify the parameters with the greatest impact on health risks.FindingsThe results show that the dust concentration is centered around the mean, and the fitting results are close to normal distribution, so the mean value can be used to carry out the calculation of risk. However, calculations using the DACM model revealed that there are still some work areas at risk. DALY damage is most severe in concrete production area. Meanwhile, the inhalation rate (IR), exposure duration (ED), exposure frequency (EF) and average exposure time (AT) showed greater impacts based on the sensitivity analysis.Originality/valueBased on the comparison, the DACM model can determine that the potential occupational health risk of prefabricated concrete component (PC) factory and the risk is less than that of on-site construction. It synthesizes field research and simulation to form the entire assessment process into a case-base system with the depth of the cycle, which allows the model to be continuously adjusted to reduce the occupational health damage caused by production pollution exposure.

Making the sustainability hotspot analysis more participatory—experiences from field research in Zambia

Food value chains constitute a core element of food systems. Along any value chain, several bottlenecks, and obstacles negatively affect the sustainability of the entire chain. Therefore, the identification and assessment of such sustainability hotspots is a vital step in the process towards higher levels of sustainability. Over the past few decades food value chains have been supported as part of development cooperation to help alleviate poverty and ensure food and nutrition security. However, so far, a suitable methodology to assess aspects of sustainability along such food value chains was not available. Therefore, we have adapted the sustainability hotspot analysis, originally developed by the Wuppertal Institute, and enhanced it with a participatory approach, thereby making it suitable for application in the context of development cooperation. In this paper, we present a step-by-step overview of the entire assessment process by using examples from its application in Zambia’s dairy and groundnut value chains. The developed methodology allows, through participatory means, the identification and assessment of sustainability aspects by stakeholders themselves, with the validation and amplification of assessment results by locally-based value chain experts. We demonstrate that results from this participatory hotspot analysis are aligned with the principles of agroecology promoted by the FAO, and are geared towards supporting transformative food system change processes. Our key findings from the application of the participatory hotspot analysis showed that sustainability hotspots occur in the social, economic, and ecological dimensions of sustainability along both value chains. It also became clear that hotspots are frequently interconnected, requiring a holistic approach based on a solid understanding of strong sustainability when designing solutions. We conclude that our participatory hotspot analysis provides a user-friendly methodology that generates action-oriented recommendations, and provides an ideal starting point in the development process for co-learning and co-creation of knowledge aimed at generating sustainability-enhancing innovations. The application of the participatory hotspot analysis reveals information on aspects that threaten the sustainability of value chains from a stakeholder perspective. Knowledge of these perspectives is essential, especially for development practitioners tasked with designing implementation strategies to improve the sustainability of value chains.

How Serious are We About Fairness in Testing and How Far are We Willing to Go? A Response to Randall and Bennett with Reflections About the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing

ABSTRACT Jennifer Randall’s paper on justice-oriented assessment and Randy Bennett’s paper on socioculturally responsive assessment address fairness in the testing of racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse student populations by providing principles and recommendations for improved assessment practice. I warn about the perils of assuming that principles and recommendations suffice to promote fair testing in the absence of serious changes in the entire process of assessment. I liken the limitations of this over-reliance on principles and recommendations to the limitations of the fairness chapter of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, whose wording portraits actions to address fairness in testing as optional. A transformative agenda on assessment practice needs to be based on a systemic perspective that involves all components and stages in the assessment process and needs to aim to produce a paradigm shift that establishes more rigorous expectations about what counts as fairness in assessment.

Investigating the Influence of Quality Factors on User Satisfaction with Summative Computer-based Assessment

Computer-based assessment or e-assessment system is an e-learning system where information communication technology is utilized for examination activity, grading, and recording of responses of the examinees. It includes the entire assessment process from the examinees, teachers, institutions, examination agencies, and the public. E-assessment systems have been used extensively in educational and non-educational settings worldwide because of their significant impact on assessment to both the institutions and students. Electronic assessment systems have many significant advantages over conventional paper-pencil-based approaches, like reducing production cost, automatic marking, and fair grading. Other benefits include the ability to conduct adaptive testing, an increase in the frequency of assessment, a large number of people could be examined, low staff requirements during the assessment, and the ability to improve the quality of the evaluation. Text, images, audio, video, and interactive virtual environments in an e-assessment system are all feasible. Nevertheless, given all these advantages, some examinees expressed negative views about electronic assessment in our study due to fear or lack of familiarity with assessment technology and lack of information on e-assessment methods. Despite the increased adoption of e-assessment in higher education and organizations, the examinees' attitudes and opinions need to be studied to implement the system successfully. In an e-assessment environment, several factors account for the evaluation of the system quality. These factors can be categorized into three dimensions: technical, educational, and economical. However, based on literature reviewed, limited studies attempted to map these quality factors to determine user satisfaction with an e-assessment system. This scarcity of e-assessment satisfaction studies is the gap the study intends to fill. Furthermore, this study's findings would help provide practical and theoretical implications for educational institutions and organizations. This study is among the first application of the Delone and McLean information system success model to predict user satisfaction with computer-based assessment in a developing, African country.

Assessing Speech Sound Disorders in School-Age Children From Diverse Language Backgrounds: A Tutorial With Three Case Studies

Purpose Assessing speech sound disorders (SSDs) in children from multilingual backgrounds requires synthesis of language- and dialect-specific information to arrive at a more accurate diagnosis. We present three case studies of school-age children with unique linguistic profiles to aid speech-language pathologists in assessing this diverse population. Our aim is to offer feasible strategies for speech-language pathologists who do not speak the student's language(s). Method Three multilingual school-age children with suspected SSD were assessed as part of an initial evaluation at a suburban school district. Children spoke Vietnamese–English, Japanese–Polish–English, and Tamil–English. Students' languages were considered in the entire assessment process (i.e., interview, test selection, data analysis, and clinical decision making), and appropriate measures and resources were chosen to understand word-level and spontaneous articulation, phonological awareness, and language skills. A contrastive analysis was used to determine the presence of an SSD. Conclusions Although all students presented with patterns attributable to transfer processes (e.g., nonmainstream vowel productions) and/or dialectal differences, only one of the three students presented with an SSD. Together, these cases underscore the importance of a comprehensive assessment for multilingual children.

How do current sustainability assessment tools support farmers’ strategic decision making?

A multitude of farm-level sustainability assessment tools (SATs) exists, reflecting a variety of agricultural practices and sustainability perceptions. Tools differ and insight is lacking about how they match with farmers’ needs. This paper examines whether and how existing SATs focus on the farmer’s strategic decision-making. The potential of the SATs to direct farmers towards more sustainable management is analysed with a focus on their implementation and the farmers’ decision-making process. Based on the published SAT characteristics and on interviews with the tool developers, we classified 18 SATs in a two-dimensional framework. One axis reflects the overall complexity of the SATs, i.e. time required for the entire assessment process; type of assessment, indicators and data, and thematic coverage. The other axis reflects the steps in the farmer’s strategic decision making process, i.e. assessment, interpretation, development of improvement strategies, their implementation, and monitoring of results. We make three main observations: (1) many SATs lack a focus on the implementation of the assessment’s results and thus provide only a weak link to the farmers’ strategic decision making; (2) over its lifetime, a SAT’s complexity may evolve, causing it to shift to another complexity level; (3) a diversity of goals was found at each level of complexity. These observations allow us to conclude that SATs are gradually becoming more farm or farmer focused, offering more context specificity and flexibility. The farm(er) focus and the support for strategic decision-making play a central role in the adoption of sustainable practices if there is sufficient interaction between farmers, advisors and experts. Future research should therefore focus on integrating support for farmers’ strategic decision-making in (further) development of SATs and in their implementation process.

Assessment problems of junior high school teachers in implementing 2013 Indonesian curriculum

This study aims to obtain an overview of teacher difficulties in carrying out mathematical learning assessments based on the 2013 curriculum. The method used in this study was qualitative descriptive. The research subjects were mathematics teachers in three schools in Bandung. The results of the study can be divided by 3 stages, namely planning stage, implementation stages, and making report stages. The first in stage, it is found that teachers’ problems include the lack of evaluation format and less preparation in making learning instruments. In the second stage, the teachers have difficulty in doing assessment because they do not understand whether the assessment formats made by them are in accordance with the 2013 curriculum. Teachers also have difficulty dealing with the time for conducting the entire assessment process. In the last stage, the teachers have difficulty in comprehending the meaning of the report results presented in some forms, like in the form of numbers, letters, and descriptions.

Automated Tool for Health Utility Assessments: The Gambler II.

Background. The Gambler II is a web-based utility assessment tool supporting visual analogue scale (VAS), standard gamble (SG), and time trade-off (TTO) utility assessments. It contains novel features, including an easy to use project development authoring tool and use of multimedia clips for health state descriptions. Objectives. Evaluate the usability and understandability of the patient-facing side of The Gambler. Investigate the feasibility of using The Gambler and evaluate its impact on patient knowledge regarding the relevant health states. Materials and Methods. We used The Gambler to assess utilities on a convenience sample of 55 users for common long-term complications of type 2 diabetes mellitus: diabetic neuropathy, diabetic retinopathy, and diabetic foot infection requiring transmetatarsal amputation. Using VAS, SG, and TTO, we collected metadata, such as time spent on each assessment and the entire assessment process. We evaluated usability with an adaptation of the System Usability Scale survey and understandability. We evaluated impact on knowledge gained through knowledge assessments about these complications before and after use of The Gambler. Results. Overall satisfaction with The Gambler was high, 4.02 on a 5-point scale. Usability rated highly at 84.93 on a normalized scale between 0 and 100. Knowledge scores increased significantly following use of The Gambler from pretest mean of 68% to posttest mean of 76% (P < 0.01). Average time using the software: ∼7½ minutes. Conclusions. The Gambler is an easy to use and understand computer-based tool for utility assessment. It is feasible to use within clinical encounters to support shared decision making, and it has unique features that make it a powerful tool for investigators interested in research on health utilities.

Connecting the Classroom to the Business World: Evolvement of a PALAR Journey in a Disciplinary Environment

There is an increasing demand for skilled graduates who can integrate and apply theoretical knowledge in a real-world context. As a means of enhancing students' employability skills in an exit-level strategic marketing module, two lecturers embarked on a PALAR (participatory action learning action research) journey over a period of three years to design a skills-centred curriculum with corresponding assessments centred upon partnerships between educators, students, and businesses. In order to attain the desired level of practical learning, the partners formed part of the entire assessment process. This included the businesses' (local, national, and international) involvement in the pro cess of identifying real-life problems that served as the foundation of the assessments. Furthermore, the business partners also formed part of the feedback system, empowering the students with practical, industry-specific feedback while, in turn, enhancing the businesses' idea generation process with insight obtained from the students' thinking. During this process, the lecturers redesigned assessments until strategic alignment was attained between the partners' needs and the module's exit-level outcomes. The results reveal that the partnerships between educators, students, and businesses added value to the students' learning experience and enhanced their perceived employability skills. This article thereby contributes to extant literature by explaining how the PALAR approach can be practically applied in the field of business management and marketing. The practical details provided can easily be utilised by educators in the same and other similar fields. Furthermore, an established set of reflective questions and a summary framework have been included, which can aid a lecturer in evolving a PALAR journey. This personal PALAR journey, and the reflection thereon, proved not to be rigid in nature but, instead, fluid and highly adaptable. Each recursive PALAR cycle (plan-act-evaluate/observe-reflect) is needed and cannot be completed without the others. In conclusion, the way one addresses each cycle will be unique to one's teaching style and discipline-specific needs. This article provides educators in similar positions with insight into how they can use a PALAR process when designing their modules and assessments to foster employable graduates.

Evaluation of Public Health Emergency Management in China: A Systematic Review

To summarize the present status of health emergency management assessment in China, a comprehensive search of Chinese databases for research that explicitly mention health emergency assessment indicators and indicator systems was performed. Studies were evaluated using the Ekman quality assessment tool, and data were extracted with an original extraction form. Sixty-one studies were included. There are many types and methods of health emergency management assessment in China, and the dimensions and the indicators involved are complex. Legal, regulatory, and policy bases for such assessment need to be further strengthened. The relevance of the entire assessment process and its practical application should be enhanced. In the occupational practice, appropriate evaluation methods should be selected according to respective evaluation purposes, evaluation objects, and contents. Laws, regulations, and policies in the evaluation of health emergency management should be improved. Finally, further correlational research on health emergency management evaluation system processes should be explored and improved.

Examining Cultural Responsiveness in Large-Scale Assessment: The Matrix of Evidence for Validity Argumentation

As cultural products, assessment systems and instruments are a reflection of the cultures in which they originate and reproduce the characteristics of those cultures. Accordingly, cultural responsiveness in large-scale assessment concerns the entire process of assessment, not simply its tests or the analysis of test scores. This paper focuses on validity as argumentation in the testing of culturally diverse populations in both national and international large-scale assessment programs. It examines the intersection of m procedural assumptions (conceptual and methodological criteria that need to be met in order to validly, fair test culturally diverse populations) and n components of the process of assessment. The paper explains the development and use of the matrix of evidence for validity argumentation. In this matrix, a cell [i, j] contains confirming and disconfirming evidence that Procedural Assumption i is met by the practices enacted and the artifacts used or generated in Assessment Process Component j. An argument of validity is constructed by integrating the information contained in the cells of the matrix. A series of examples illustrate how each procedural assumption intersects with each assessment process component in the matrix. These examples show the ubiquity of cultural issues in assessment. Attaining cultural responsiveness in large-scale national and international assessment programs entails a serious systemic, societal, global effort.

La Acción Evaluativa en Profesores de Educación Física: Una Investigación Multi-Casos

The assessment action is assumed as all the activities carried out by the teacher in the interactive phase of teaching, focused on the assessment and reflect the practical thinking of teacher. Although it is understood that this assessment action constitutes a totality, analyzing each of the elements that makeup the assessment (moments, actors, instruments and contents) allows to identify the plots and relationships of a better way. The objective of this study was to analyze the assessment action during a didactic unit of a group of Physical Education teachers of middle and high school of Medellin (Colombia). The research was conducted through a qualitative design, specifically with a methodological approach of multiple case study. The information was collected through observation using audio and video recording of all class sessions of every teacher (a total of) and documentary analysis. Among the main findings are that the summative and accrediting tradition of the assessment strongly influences the assessment action of the teachers. This position is reflected in the collection of unsystematic information, the lack of specific instruments and criteria, especially, in the leading role in awarding the grade and how it permeates the entire assessment process.

La Acción Evaluativa en Profesores de Educación Física: Una Investigación Multi-Casos

The assessment action is assumed as all the activities carried out by the teacher in the interactive phase of teaching, focused on the assessment and reflect the practical thinking of teacher. Although it is understood that this assessment action constitutes a totality, analyzing each of the elements that makeup the assessment (moments, actors, instruments and contents) allows to identify the plots and relationships of a better way. The objective of this study was to analyze the assessment action during a didactic unit of a group of Physical Education teachers of middle and high school of Medellin (Colombia). The research was conducted through a qualitative design, specifically with a methodological approach of multiple case study. The information was collected through observation using audio and video recording of all class sessions of every teacher (a total of) and documentary analysis. Among the main findings are that the summative and accrediting tradition of the assessment strongly influences the assessment action of the teachers. This position is reflected in the collection of unsystematic information, the lack of specific instruments and criteria, especially, in the leading role in awarding the grade and how it permeates the entire assessment process.

Understanding Parents’ Experiences of their Child’s Assessment Process

ABSTRACTIn general, there is a need to obtain input from parents about their experience with their child’s assessment process to promote quality service provision. Indeed, parents are experts in their daily lives and bring valuable information regarding what issues they find important to the assessment process. However, our understanding of parents’ experiences of the entire assessment process, from initial contact with the clinician’s office to the final feedback meeting, is limited because much of research to date has explicitly focused on parents’ experiences of receiving their child’s diagnosis. This article extends our understanding by synthesizing the literature to delineate parents’ experiences of the assessment process that resulted in their child’s mental health and/or neurodevelopmental diagnosis and addresses all phases of the assessment process. Key practices affecting parents’ overall experiences within each phase of assessment are discussed and practical implications for clinical practice for clinical and school psychologists are offered.

Climate change vulnerability assessment in Mauritania: reflections on data quality, spatial scales, aggregation and visualizations

Mauritania is vulnerable to climate change due to its location along the Sahel, the desert climate of the Sahara, and its socio-economic characteristics. To support the identification of climate change adaptation measures in Brakna and Assaba in Mauritania, a spatial assessment of vulnerability to climate change targeting the livelihood sectors of agriculture and pastoralism was carried out. Based on the identification of relevant drivers of climate change vulnerability in a broad consultation process among national and local stakeholders, a variety of geospatial indicators were identified and integrated in the assessments based on a standardized vulnerability assessment approach. In this paper, we provide a reflection on the methodology applied and identify lessons to be learnt on data quality, spatial scales, aggregation and visualizations. The primary conclusion is that users of the assessment results and stakeholders need to be engaged in the entire assessment process in order to reflect local characteristics more fully, and to ensure that the results are reflected in informed decision-making.

Assessing value of innovative molecular diagnostic tests in the concept of predictive, preventive, and personalized medicine.

Molecular diagnostic tests drive the scientific and technological uplift in the field of predictive, preventive, and personalized medicine offering invaluable clinical and socioeconomic benefits to the key stakeholders. Although the results of diagnostic tests are immensely influential, molecular diagnostic tests (MDx) are still grudgingly reimbursed by payers and amount for less than 5 % of the overall healthcare costs. This paper aims at defining the value of molecular diagnostic test and outlining the most important components of “value” from miscellaneous assessment frameworks, which go beyond accuracy and feasibility and impact the clinical adoption, informing healthcare resource allocation decisions. The authors suggest that the industry should facilitate discussions with various stakeholders throughout the entire assessment process in order to arrive at a consensus about the depth of evidence required for positive marketing authorization or reimbursement decisions. In light of the evolving “value-based healthcare” delivery practices, it is also recommended to account for social and ethical parameters of value, since these are anticipated to become as critical for reimbursement decisions and test acceptance as economic and clinical criteria.

Child's objection to non-beneficial research: capacity and distress based models.

A child’s objection, refusal and dissent regarding participation in non-beneficial biomedical research must be respected, even when the parents or legal representatives have given their permission. There is, however, no consensus on the definition and criteria of a meaningful and valid child’s objection. The aim of this article is to clarify this issue. In the first part we describe the problems of a child’s assent in research. In the second part we distinguish and analyze two models of a child’s objection to research: the capacity-based model and the distress-based model. In the last part we present arguments for a broader and unified understanding of a child’s objection within regulations and practices. This will strengthen children’s rights and facilitate the entire process of assessment of research protocols.

Implementation of Vision-based Object Tracking Algorithms for Motor Skill Assessments

Assessment of upper extremity motor skills often involves object manipulation, drawing or writing using a pencil, or performing specific gestures. Traditional assessment of such skills usually requires a trained person to record the time and accuracy resulting in a process that can be labor intensive and costly. Automating the entire assessment process will potentially lower the cost, produce electronically recorded data, broaden the implementations, and provide additional assessment infor-mation. This paper presents a low-cost, versatile, and easy-to-use algorithm to automatically detect and track single or multiple well-defined geometric shapes or markers. It therefore can be applied to a wide range of assessment protocols that involve object manipulation or hand and arm gestures. The algorithm localizes the objects using color thresholding and morphological operations and then estimates their 3-dimensional pose. The utility of the algorithm is demonstrated by implementing it for automating the following five protocols: the sport of Cup Stacking, the Soda Pop Coordination test, the Wechsler Block Design test, the visual-motor integration test, and gesture recognition.

New directions in scholarly publishing: journal articles beyond the present

&gt;&gt; See video of presentation (28 min.) The primary goal of scholarly communication is improving human knowledge and sharing is the key to achieve this goal: sharing ideas, sharing methodologies, sharing of results, sharing data, information and knowledge. Although the concept of sharing applies to all phases of scholarly communication, most often the only visible part is the final publication, with the journal article as a most common type. The traditional characteristics of the present journals allow only limited possibilities for sharing the knowledge. Basic functions, registration, dissemination, certification, and storage, are still present but they are no more effective in the network environment. Registration is too slow, there are various barriers to dissemination, certification system has many shortcomings, and used formats are not suitable for the long term preservation and storage. Although the journals today are digital and various powerful technologies are available, they are still focused on their unaltered printed versions. This presentation will discuss possible evolution of journal article to become more compliant with users' needs and to enable “the four R’s of openness” – reuse, redistribute, revise and remix (Hilton, Wiley, Stein, &amp; Johnson, 2010).Several aspects of openness will be presented and discussed: open access, open data, open peer review, open authorship, and open formats. With digital technology which has become indispensable in the creation, collection, processing and storage of data in all scientific disciplines the way of conducting scientific research has changed and the concept of "data-driven science" has been introduced (Ware &amp; Mabe, 2009). Sharing research data enhances the capabilities of reproducing the results, reuse maximizes the value of research, accelerating the advancement of science, ensuring transparency of scientific research, reducing the possibility of bias in the interpretation of results and increasing the credibility of published scientific knowledge. The open peer review can ensure full transparency of the entire process of assessment and help to solve many problems in the present scholarly publishing. Through the process of the open peer review each manuscript can be immediately accessible, reviewers can publicly demonstrate their expertise and could be rewarded, and readers can be encouraged to make comments and views and to become active part of the scholarly communication process. The trend to to describe the author's contribution is also present, which will certainly lead to a reduced number of “ghost”, "guest" and "honorary" authors, and will help to establish better standards for author’s identification.Various web technologies can be used also for the semantic enhancement of the article. One of the most important aspects of semantic publication is the inclusion of the research data, to make them available to the user as an active data that can be manipulated. It is possible to integrate data from external sources, or to merge the data from different resources (data fusion) (Shotton, 2012), so the reader can gain further understanding of the presented data. Additional options provide merging data from different articles, with the addition of the component of time. Other semantic enhancement can include enriched bibliography, interactive graphical presentations, hyperlinks to external resources, tagged text, etc.Instead of mostly static content, journals can offer readers dynamic content that includes multimedia, "living mathematics", “executable articles”, etc. Videos highlighting critical points in the research process, 3D representations of chemical compounds or art works, audio clips with the author's reflections and interviews, and animated simulations or models of ocean currents, tides, temperature and salinity structure, can became soon common part of every research article. The diversity of content and media, operating systems (GNU / Linux, Apple Mac OSX, Microsoft Windows), and software tools that are available to researchers, suggests the usage of the appropriate open formats. Different formats have their advantages and disadvantages and it would be necessary to make multiple formats available, some of which are suitable for "human" reading (including printing on paper), and some for machine reading that can be used by computers without human intervention. Characteristics and possibilities of several formats will be discussed, including XML as the most recommended format, which can enable granulate document structure as well as deliver semantics to the human reader or to the computer.Literature:Hilton, J. I., Wiley, D., Stein, J., &amp; Johnson, A. (2010). The Four R’s of Openness and ALMS Analysis: Frameworks for Open Educational Resources. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 25(1), 37–44. doi:10.1080/02680510903482132Shotton, D. (2012). The Five Stars of Online Journal Articles - a Framework for Article Evaluation. D-Lib Magazine, 18(1/2), 1–16. doi:10.1045/january2012-shottonWare, M., &amp; Mabe, M. (2009). The stm report (p. 68).

Making connections: On fantasy, applied linguistics and outcomes-based education

It is argued in this article that literature is a resource for exploring constructs in non-literary fields of study. More specifically, we selected a fictional account of an .assessment event. in Terry Pratchett.s ligPyramidsl/ig as source material for teacher training. Pratchett.s fictional rendition of authority-based facilitator-learner interaction in an .oral assessment event. indicates that the novelist has a firm grasp of the interactional rules that govern this kind of exchange. The discourse in the fictional event follows the traditional Initiation-Response exchange pattern, with Feedback (IRF) suspended until the learner has successfully concluded the entire assessment process. Moreover, the assessment event is analysed from an outcomes-based education (OBE) perspective. The fictional interactional exchange (and the subsequent hands-on performance-based assessment in the novel) . with Pratchett in satiric mode . provides sufficient information for prospective teachers to define (hypothetical) specific outcomes, assessment criteria and range statements that could apply to the training of assassins in the Assassins. Guild on the Discworld. Several worksheets are presented to illustrate how this particular fictional text may be used to examine practical aspects and theoretical constructs in English Language Teaching (ELT).