Fit for purpose: qualification design needs to start with 'why?'

When we think about qualifications – GCSEs, A Levels, T Levels, and the many others offered in England – it’s tempting to focus on what they contain: the subjects, the assessments, the grades. But before any of that, we need to ask a question. Do we really understand what the qualification is for?

New research from Ofqual, titled Designing qualifications that will be fit for their purposes, sets out a detailed framework for what we call 'purpose analysis'. This is the idea that getting clarity on a qualification's purposes should be the essential first step in designing it. Skipping or short-changing this step is one of the main reasons for failure.

More complicated than it looks

Designing a qualification might seem relatively straightforward: decide what it's for, work out what it should assess, and build it accordingly. In practice, it's far more complex. Qualifications are asked to serve many different purposes simultaneously, and those purposes can conflict with each other.

The report identifies 3 distinct perspectives that shape what a qualification needs to do. The expertise perspective focuses on the body of knowledge, skills and understanding that learners should acquire – the learning itself. The engagement perspective considers how the qualification motivates learners and their teachers, and whether it promotes effective teaching and learning. The information perspective looks at what qualification results tell us, and how accurately they support decisions about individuals, institutions, and the wider education system.

All 3 perspectives matter, but they often pull in different directions. A qualification designed primarily to motivate disengaged post-16 learners, for instance, may look very different from one designed largely to provide reliable signals for university admissions. When these tensions aren't confronted head-on – if designers try to serve all purposes equally without making explicit choices – the result can be a qualification that serves none of them well.

Learning from the past

The report draws on a rich seam of history to illustrate what goes wrong when purpose analysis is neglected. The General National Vocational Qualification (GNVQ), for example, was expected simultaneously to motivate disaffected learners, expand routes into higher education, prepare students for work, achieve parity of esteem with A Levels, and more. This was a range of demands so broad and diverse, the aims were never likely to be achieved satisfactorily. This is not the only example of a qualification designed with insufficient attention to its driving purposes, subsequently failing.

Four questions every designer should ask

So, what does good purpose analysis look like? Our report suggests designers need to work through 4 key considerations.

First, who is the qualification for – what are the characteristics and circumstances of the learners it will serve? Second, what purposes should it serve, and from which perspectives? Third, how does it fit within the wider qualification landscape, and does it maintain the structural, cognitive, and ethical integrity of the system as a whole? Fourth, what practical constraints – financial, human, physical, political – will shape what's achievable?

Crucially, this analysis should result in an explicit, prioritised profile of purposes. Not a list in which everything is equally important, but a clear-eyed account of what the qualification most needs to achieve, and what trade-offs are acceptable. There is no such thing as a perfect qualification.

Why this matters now

This research is relevant right now. England's qualification system is undergoing significant reform, with changes affecting qualifications at a range of levels. The frameworks explored in this report, developed at Ofqual during the past decade and used in the drafting of new regulations, should help ensure the ongoing reform efforts are built on solid foundations.

The report is deliberately theoretical in places, offering conceptual tools rather than simple answers. But its practical message is clear: qualification design is always a matter of compromise, and the best way to navigate that is to be explicit about purposes from the very start.

By Paul Newton, Research Chair, Ofqual

https://ofqual.blog.gov.uk/2026/07/07/fit-for-purpose-qualification-design-needs-to-start-with-why/

seen at 09:48, 7 July in The Ofqual blog.