The subject of assessment has become an increasingly crucial factor in both vocational and higher education. The most important reason for its increasingly prominent role is the emphasis currently placed on lifelong learning. The book ’Quality and Practice in Assessment: New Approaches in Work-Related Learning’ introduces new approaches to the assessment of work-related learning and methods for guaranteeing its quality. The book launches the term practice-oriented assessment, with reference to performance- and competence-based assessment and to authentic assessment in work-related learning. Practice-oriented assessment reflects various theoretical positions. These are embedded in work-related and work-based learning, which can be described, for example, under the concepts of reflective, transformative, contextual and situated learning.

In this volume, the central features (focus, methods, assessors, context and quality) of practice-oriented assessment are described in different contexts and at different levels of European vocational education within the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci project ’Quality Assurance and Practice-Oriented Assessment in VET’. The articles in this volume are based on case studies implemented in the Austrian, Irish, German, Estonian and Finnish contexts.