This research is situated at the juncture between the fields of competency assessment in building regulation education and visual online pedagogy. Literature in these areas discusses the multifaceted benefits of professional development competence and the experience of visual online pedagogy, but there are shortcomings in how it addresses visual assessment, competency assessment, and online pedagogy suitable for application into building regulation education. This study investigates competency assessment in building regulation education by exploring a novel pedagogy in an online course. A novel evaluation theoretical framework was developed to support this research. A single case study methodology was used to collect empirical data in three phases. In phase one data was collected from industry participants, in phase two from professional bodies, and in phase three from consenting online professional course participants. Data was sourced through ten methods, and analysis was undertaken to evaluate the experience of the online continuing professional development course, the novel pedagogy, and the implications in the wider professional development landscape. Phase one reflected a greatly enhanced course design by including industry expertise, phase two identified conflict between professional body educational offerings versus the building regulation practitioners’ actual requirements, and phase three identified that the use of authentic competency assessment with a high percentage pass rate was particularly valuable in this novel pedagogy. The flexible, agile, online aspect of this training, the use of examples, and the amalgamation of different regulations into one course worked well. A key contribution to the literature is to exemplify visual and competence assessment for building regulation online education in the context of its seniority within the evaluation pedagogy framework. A further key contribution is to emphasise the development of a novel evaluation theoretical framework to support micro, meso, and macro evaluation, thus providing a measure of value, quality, and skills demonstrated by professional development practice in an online course.
Irene Hayden (2024) studied this question.