Assessment - Required in all learning?

Last Friday I was jogging with a friend of mine Teresa when an interesting conversation came up.  Just to give a bit of context, Teresa is currently working an her PhD, the topic of which I always ask but never seem to remember.  Anyway, it's very much related to e-learning, so she's pretty clued up about the academic side of education theory.  I'll mention now, that my knowledge in this area isn't great and what I'll say here may be fundamentally flawed.  If it is, I'd love to know in the comments, or you could just comment if you just disagree with me.

I was talking about some recent Police training I had been on, and my feelings on it.  I had then mentioned that some of the training I do for the Police isn't assessed.  Teresa's feelings on this were made very clear: if you don't assess learning, then there is no point taking it; I disagreed with this.

I'll be honest and say I don't think I really explained my reasons for this particularly well, but we moved on to other topics and/or we became out of breath and therefore decided that running in silence may be more sustainable.

So in particular Teresa style, she's been stewing on this for a week and decided to challenge my assertion via a few questions in an email:

a. Is it worth teaching or learning something if you are never going to use it?
   i. Where “using it” includes incorporating or translating it into another, larger ability that can be used.
b. Which is better in situations that require correct, full knowledge about X:
   i.  Knowing nothing about X
   ii. Having half-knowledge or a misconception about X, but a belief that you know it fully

I'll directly answer these questions in a moment, but the context in which I made my assertion was quite specific.  I've done a few courses for the Police where the majority of the course isn't necessary to gain new knowledge per se, but to alter or reinforce (depending on existing position) particular behaviour.  This focus on soft skills is rather different to normal teaching.

The set of desired behaviours aren't really taught, instead the instructors tend to challenge the perceived "undesired" view and this is generally done within group discussions.  Sometimes, these are pseudo assessed via role-plays, but how do you really assess whether someone has the desired behaviour when they are out on duty?  I don't see how you can.  Often behaviour won't be changed in the 2 hour training session either.  Perhaps the trainer gives an interesting anecdote which challenges your existing beliefs, it may take may days or weeks of mulling over to accept it's merits and change your beliefs and therefore future behaviour.  Again, how could you possibly assess this?

So to answer the questions put to me, no, I don't think it's worth teaching or learning something you never have a possibility of using it, however, where you are changing beliefs and behaviour, is this really an "ability"?

I agree that having misconceptions or not fully understanding certain topics can be damaging, especially in the Police, and I agree that when we're taught legislation and we have concrete information to learn that assessment  is vital.  That said, how can you possibly assess whether someone is more accommodating of other races or whether we understand what it's like to be mentally ill so we can treat them the best possible way?  Answers on a postcard please.