General standards are standards that apply to all assessments. Your students need to learn more than just the skill that is the main point of the lesson.
Several another de facto requirements are not always written in policy but derive from the idea of competence. In essence, they mean that the student has all the skills they need to do their job relative to the unit requirements.
You should require consistency. The trend is that all evidence should consistently indicate competence, so it is clear the students can perform the skill consistently on more than one occasion. A patchy performance should not be considered competent.
The rationale is that a competent person has consistent performance. In fact, some standards now explicitly require consistency. Depending on how much evidence is sufficient, you may have to check that the student has performed the skill in a range of contexts over a period of time.
If you face inconsistent evidence, check to see what is going on. Here are two examples:
Most evidence for Jeff’s assessment appeared to demonstrate competence but some clearly demonstrated that the Jeff was not yet competent. (That is, there wasn't just a lack of positive evidence but also the presence of negative evidence.) The latter evidence was checked and found to be highly credible so a Not Yet Competent result was given.
Joanna’s case was much the same, with some evidence demonstrating competence and some evidence pointing definitely to a not yet competent result. The evidence was checked and one item was found to be unfairly biased against her. Joanna was assessed as competent.
The basic meaning of reliable is that the assessment works the same way every time. Reliability depends on assessors sharing a common interpretation of the units and of evidence being assessed. It means consistent results:
Will the assessment give the same results at different times or for people who have learnt the skills in quite different ways? Will the evidence be interpreted in the same away by other assessors? Do different kinds of assessment of the same skill produce the same results?
Will the procedure assess people in widely different situations? Flexible means that the assessment works equally well for all students and situations for which it was designed. This includes disabled and RPL students where relevant. For compliance purposes, this should be evident in the tools.
Fair means that the assessment works equally well for all students for whom it is designed, including disabled and RPL students where relevant. Perhaps no single assessment strategy is equally fair for all students, although an assessment strategy can be fair for all members of a particular group.
Does the process favor one kind of student over another? How would you assess a disabled person? Do students know they can appeal? Do students know beforehand the way they will be assessed and criteria used in assessment?
Is the work being examined the student's own work? Do you need to verify it? For example:
Are you assessing skills that the student has now? Or what they once knew and have since perhaps forgotten? For example: A 10-year-old report confirming a student's computer literacy is not evidence of their current skills.
Some people also now use "current" to mean that you are assessing against the current version of the standards. While it is not too difficult to keep track of training packages, you will find that national training bodies also make minor revisions quite frequently and these are much more difficult to track.
Valid means that the assessment assesses what it is supposed to assess.This has two meanings:
1. You are assessing the right thing. For example, an assessment of theory is not an assessment of practical competence, and (usually) vise versa. You can't assess skill in riding a bicycle through an essay. If you tried, the student might not be able to ride a bicycle, even if he/she showed competence in expressing and handling concepts, and drawing and justifying conclusions.
2. You are complying with the standard. The assessment addresses all requirements. In this meaning, assessments are invalid if they don't address all requirements or add extra requirements. Does the assessment adequately cover the range of skills? Does it integrate theory and practice? Are there multiple ways to assess the learning?
stretching
It is possible to interpret a requirement by stretching it into something quite different, so that the assessment is no longer valid.
The student must be able to perform a skill in a specified context, but then we say that the student must also be able to adapt the skill to other contexts. However, some contexts are so different that it would be unfair to require the student to perform the skill in that way. In Kirsty’s case, the unit requirements have been stretched into very different contexts, so different that it would be unfair on her:
Kirsty, a female youth worker has all her training and experience with young, homeless girls in the inner city, and is a senior team leader. She is assessed as competent and commended for excellence.
Is it fair to say that Kirsty is not yet competent because she doesn’t work with boys of the same age? Or older boys? Or older upper class boys in an exclusive private school? What about older immigrant young people? No. Somewhere there is a line over which it becomes unfair to stretch.
You can ask too much. In your quest for excellence, you might make demands of students that are so high that the extra demands are unfair. In Justin’s case, the requirements were stretched upward.
The coordinator of Justin’s course was aiming for excellence. He determined that only the best would be able to get through.
He added substantially to the requirements and defined very high performance standards. The course was excellent and many students did the extra work to rise to the challenge, although nearly half the class dropped out. Those who finished were all assessed as competent and went on to do very well in other units.
Stretching upward doesn’t seem to happen as often, but it can be unfair to students like Justin:
On the other hand, you can stretch upwards as good practice. The units are simply minimum standards, and it is good practice to encourage students to achieve the highest standard that they can. It’s just that you can’t require students to do more than the actual unit to pass it.
In Aaron’s case, the requirements were stretched downward ("dumbed down"):
Aaron joins a course and puts in an honest effort. He finds it quite difficult, but is given extra help by a teacher who nurtures the students along so that they can at least fall over the line and pass the course. With all good intentions, the teacher stretched the elements lower than they should be.
You can ask too little. At this end of the scale, you may interpret the standards so low that you are basically cheating.
Whether the tendency is downward or upward, it seems to happen quite often.
Stretching can be handled by defining the standards more precisely. Moderation is also helpful. In either case, the point is to specify fair interpretation.
It's the assessor's responsibility to have a procedure that asks students for enough evidence. But it's the student's responsibility to provide enough evidence.
However, there is no universal definition of ‘sufficient evidence.’ It will sometimes vary according to the actual competency, so you will need to find out how much evidence is sufficient on a case by case basis.
Consider the following &hellips;
There is generally no assessment policy written on the role of attitudes, and some authorities take the narrow view of assessing behavior only and consider attitudes irrelevant. However, many units contain requirements that are de facto attitude statements.
The rule of thumb is that attitudes must be appropriate to the kind of skill. The role of attitudes varies with the kind of job:
Besides, some attitudes (such as prejudice based on gender or race) can be unconscious but observable in behavior. Even when attitudes are unconscious, they still need to be appropriate to the student's work. Training should have raised those issues to a conscious level.
Confidence usually comes up as an issue.
Ideally, you'd like students to do a good job and be confident that they can do well. Consider these five variations:
Of course, if you're assessing someone who lacks confidence, it's an excellent idea to encourage them as much as you can.