A quality assessment tool consists of a number of components. Each one designed to meet particular conditions that ultimately ensure the tool meets the principles of assessments and rules of evidence.
To ensure the tool is Valid, we use a mapping matrix that carefully connects each piece of evidence to the training specification we’re using. This is usually the unit of competency. When we’re developing each assessment instrument, we create questions, activities, observations, and other documents that collect evidence that demonstrates the learner’s competency across ALL areas of the training specification. From the performance criteria and assessment conditions, to the foundation skills and dimensions of competency.
A reliable assessment tool is one that can be used multiple times in multiple contexts and still produce the same expected outcomes, regardless of who is assessing the learner. Reliability can be checked by ensuring the Assessor’s marking guide is clear and accurate. We also use version control to make sure assessors are using the most up to date version of the assessment.
Flexibility and fairness are demonstrated by having clear instructions to both the assessor and the assessment candidate. For example, if reasonable adjustments are required for a learner with specific needs, the instructions should state how the assessor and candidate can accommodate the needs while still adhering to the principle of validity.
Authenticity of the tool is achieved a combination of items. Firstly, the assessment should have a cover page that gathers the student’s information and signature which acknowledges that the work is theirs. In electronic assessments, this can be enhanced through the use of password-protected assessment submissions and the use of plagiarism software to check the work.
The currency of evidence is vital when assessing a person’s ability to meet industry workplace needs. RTOs provide guidelines of what is considered current or not current, and this can be gathered by having evidence dated and authenticated. Again, the use of a verifiable signature and date on any evidence ensures that it has been gathered in accordance with those guidelines.
Sufficient evidence is that which meets the minimum requirements of the training specification. This may mean that some tasks need to be performed multiple times. A quality assessment instrument will allow for this, for example, by having multiple observations of some tasks, and having this clearly explained in the instructions.
Lastly, the assessment system must ensure that all evidence is stored accurately and in a timely fashion. This means that secure, protected learning management systems are in place that keep student details private, and that can be accessed by authorised RTO staff for the purposes of assessment and student support.
So, in summary, a quality tool will have the following six components:
1. Assessment administration guidelines
2. Assessor’s marking guide
3. A Mapping matrix
4. Assessment instruments to gather the evidence
5. Instructions to the assessor
6. Instructions to the candidate
The principles of assessment are – validity, reliability, flexibility and fairness. And the rules of evidence are validity, authenticity, currency and sufficiency.
There are two approaches to mapping; 1. As you develop the assessments, 2. Mapping existing assessments. The approaches have a slight difference in the process, but the end results should be the same. I’d like to cover mapping existing assessments, as that is often the hardest to achieve.
Mapping existing assessments:
Prepare all of your assessment documentation. Usually, this means having all of your electronic versions available on a computer, or having hard copies out on a clear workspace. Documents include your assessment plan (or TAS), assessment instruments and marking guides. You may also want to include past validation reports, student samples, or assessor and candidate instructions – if available.
Prepare a mapping document. This is the document where you will record the location of each component of your assessment tool against the unit/s of competency. To do this, simply cut and paste a copy of the unit/s onto a blank document, including the knowledge and performance evidence, and the foundation skills sections where available. Create a table from the unit, allowing a number of columns to the right of each performance criterion and evidence statement to record the various entries you will make. For example:
3. Carefully go through each performance criterion, knowledge and performance evidence statement and foundation skill to locate where – in your assessment tools – you have covered this sufficiently (or partially). ‘Covered’ means that the questions or activity is likely to generate evidence that would meet the intention of that criterion.
4. Where the criterion is covered, add the task/question or other relevant reference number to the coinciding column. For example, if Criterion 1.1 (below) is covered in a selection of tasks and questions, you could write tasks 3.1, 3.2 and project 2.
5. When all of the various components of the unit/s are covered, your mapping is completed. Where you are unable to map any specific criterion, this would be referred to a validation for work to be completed to correct that gap.
6. A good rule of thumb is that all criteria should be covered by at least one assessment item -perfereably more. Performance evidence should be covered by practical skills tasks (this could also mean projects, portfolios of evidence as well as direct observations). Knowledge evidence must be covered by knowledge questions explicitly. These can be verbal or written, but must clearly cover each knowledge evidence component.
7. Finally, check the assessment guidelines to ensure sufficient evidence is being captured in your assessment tools. Where two or more examples of something are required, make sure there are assessment instruments that capture each performance of the task. When in doubt, it’s always better to have more assessment than not enough.
The phone rings again and your trainee is called off to attend to another customer. You sit patiently waiting for her to return and shuffle some assessment papers around in your folder. You can’t help but think that this workplace isn’t serious about training. Or that there’s no way you’re going to gain the full attention of your trainee to ensure her successful completion in the time you’ve been allocated.
Workplace training is one of the pillars of vocational training. It is, in all respects, where applied learning can genuinely take place. You show, they learn and apply, you coach and they improve. Just apply this to any workplace, from a hair salon to an engineering firm; from a mine site to a design studio. The principles are the same. So why is it so hard? And does it necessarily have to be this hard in a workplace environment so focused on output?
I’m sure you’ve got a list of things that work for you. Most workplace trainers are rightfully competent in managing the interactions with trainees, supervisors and public interruptions. So please just see this as another perspective that you may hopefully integrate into your own practices. So without further ado, my tips are:
Get a training plan in place. No matter what the format of the training, a training plan achieves two very important things: a) Agreement to a future schedule by all stakeholders, and b) signed acknowledgement by the trainee’s manager of the time required to complete the training. Of course there’s more to it than that, but these two elements are vitally important when negotiating time during a working day.
Quiet please. Workplaces can be very active environments. My tip here is to ensure that the ‘noise’ that is likely to interrupt your trainee is removed. For example, is their phone/tablet/computer off? Are fellow workers aware that training is taking place? Can you separate the trainee from their workspace?
Establish authority. In my experience, the trainer is not always given the authority to ensure the attention of the trainee. In fact, more often than not, even minimal excuses, like “I need to respond to this email from yesterday,” are enough to distract the trainee. Use the training plan or gain explicit agreement from the trainees manager to enforce your authority.
Wouldn’t it be nice to pass on the vital skills and knowledge needed by an employee to do their job better, to an undistracted trainee? Hopefully, these tips are of some use to you. Good luck, and let me know any other tips you’ve used that help with workplace training.
When you were a teenager, chances are, you sat in a sterile room on a weekday morning with a few of your compatriots, answering a long list of driver safety questions. The State government of the day wanted you to attain a certain level of knowledge before proving your uncanny spatial awareness and physical prowess on the roads.
Today, most States require over 100 hours of logged practice in both day and night environments, after completing the knowledge test, before a young driver can even take the license test. And then… they are finally awarded their P-Plates.
P-Plates are a sign to other drivers that the world is now their highway and the roads are merely vessels to get them there. They are now lieutenants of the road (notice I didn’t say ‘Captain!’) and no-one is going to get in their way.
So – remembering what you were like when you first attained your P’s – I’d like to shine this light back on to our industry trainer and assessor qualification, the TAE40116 (and its inevitable successors).
When you first entered the world of vocational training, no matter what your background, you now had a license to teach others the skills and knowledge you had attained over the years. But seriously – did you really know what you were doing?
Adult education is – without any hint of sarcasm – a field of psychology. We can only determine our impact and effectiveness through continuous feedback, learning, reflecting, applying and testing – (think Kolb’s learning cycle). The way in which our learners pick up the necessary skills and knowledge they need to do their work is as varied as the contexts in which we all teach.
We all need to plug-in to networks that help us refine and improve our knowledge and skills. We all want to get off of our P-Plate license and hit the open road.
So – my challenge to all trainers and assessors out there – be you in TAFE, higher ed., private RTOs, public sector, or corporate – is to treat your qualifications as building blocks, not milestone markers. They are, at best, your ticket to a new way of thinking and learning. So why not treat each qualification you get as a part of your professional development and plan for it. Put in place a number of steps over the coming years. Plan out your next 1-5 years of professional development to coincide with accredited training options in the fields that both interest you and provide you job security or options.
Additionally, don’t just look at professional networks… join one! Established institutions such as ILP, Velg, Insources, and ACPET all have specific areas in which they specialise and can help you to grow within your chosen profession.
I, personally, would prefer not to undertake a qualification because it’s ‘required’ – but rather because it improves my ability to train and assess others and become a better teacher.
Let’s look at the stumbling blocks that some people have when it comes to developing a 40 minute training session.
Firstly, it can be the subject itself. What should I train? Where do I start?
This should be the easiest step to overcome, but I have seen people paralysed at this point for what seems like days. My solution is this – ask yourself what skills and knowledge you want to transfer to a new audience. Think about your workplace – what are you good at? What hobbies do you have that might incorporate some interesting skills?
For example, I thoroughly enjoy playing the guitar. So, perhaps I could teach a few skills relating to that? OR – I might really enjoy my work as a hairdresser – so I’ll look at transfering some kowledge around selecting colours for a new client.
Pro tip #1 – think of just three or four key points you’d like your audience to remember. A 40 minute training session is not 40 minutes of you talking.
Secondly, be clear about your purpose. What three or four things do you want your audience to know or do by the end of your session. Remember – it’s about them, not you. You’re simply the conduit for the skills and knowledge. They’re the receivers, and therefore the most important people in the room.
Pro tip #2 – You shouldbe able to state your purpose in one sentence. For example, by the end of this 40 minute session, my learners will be able to name and form three chords of a guitar. (see how I kept it simple? I didn’t add anything like, “and they’ll be able to discuss why music history has established the use of these three chords in hundreds of hit songs). Know when you’re going too far. Simple is best, because then you can concentrate on the best ways for your learners to retain that key information
Thirdly, research your topic and have your presentation aids ready.
One way I approach building the presentation, is to quickly Google or similarly research my topic to make sure what I’m teaching is current and accurate. As I do this, I might see new images/graphic or slides that I could use in the presentation. Always consider copyright, but this is still a critical step in the process.
If I’m using PowerPoint (or similar), I’ll have three of four blank slides ready and I’ll drag and drop these images/figures or information into the slides as a basic draft. I can also use this as a basis of my session plan and any handout or activity I’m going to create.
A quick review….
1. Decide on the subject
2. Be clear about what your learners will be able to do or know by the end of your 40 minute session
3. Researach the topic and start to draft your sesion plan, slides and handouts
Next, create a list of the three to four key points. This will form the outline of your session plan, slides, activity and handouts. For simplicity sake, let’s just say we’re going to do a PPT and run and activity. In this instance, my first PPT slide will be a high quality picture relating to my subject. My second slide will have my dot-points of the key learning outcomes.
Pro Tip #3 – Don’t rely on your slides to guide you. They’re a visual aid for the learner – not a session aid for the trainer.
Fifth step is to design one slide for each key point. This MUST include images directly related to what you want the learner to remember. Not a lot of text, as this can always be transferred to a handout if necessary. That means you now have four – six slides for a 40 minute presentation. That is AMPLE and as loing as they’re visually appealing, on messgae, and flow logically, your work with these is now done.
Sixth step is to draft your session plan.
With the flow basically outlined in your PPT presentation, you can now flesh out the way you want your 40 minute session to run. A key pro tip in this instance is to allow no more than 10-15 minutes for you to talk, and the remaining 25-30 minutes for your class to do and learn. Let’s see what that looks like:
1. Start with a question or two that hooks the learners into what they’re about to learn. Write them down expplicitly into your session plan and practice them. In my example I might ask “Who has ever played the guitar?… Would you like to know the three chords that you can use to play hundreds of songs?” Note that the first question gives me a heads up as to the learning levels of the audience – this may only be necessary if they don’t know what you’re about to teach them.
2. Look at each key point. Ask yourself “what can I get the audience to do to learn this best?” – is it an activity, a research task, a discussion, and quick quiz followed by a debrief, a group exercise, or maybe a paired activity… your options are limited only by your imagination, and the results you want to achieve.
3. After writing down the learning process for each of the key points, consider what phyical resources you’ll need, including handouts and equipment, and make notes in the resources cvolumn of your session plan.
4. Review your timing. Run it through in your head and always allow more time for the activities than you first think – as people will always learn at different rates and perhaps ask questions.
5. Create a killer ending. Wrap up the session plan by reviewing the key points (perhaps via a quiz, Q&A, or demonstration) and make a statement that encourages the learners to reflect on what new skills or knowlkedge they’ve just gained. In my example, I might say “So using an E, D and Am chord, you can now play anything from the Beetles to Ariana Grande. What an exciting start to your home-based music career!”
Pro tip #5 – don’t end with the words “Any Questions?” – this is a rhetorical and often uncomfortable question. Those who may have a question will not necessarily answer for fear of looking silly, and generally everyone just nods so the session can be completed. Rather, if you want to double check for understanding – ask specific questions of specific people.
One last review:
1. Decide on the subject
2. Be clear about what your learners will be able to do or know by the end of your 40 minute session
3. Researach the topic and start to draft your sesion plan, slides and handouts
4. Create a list of the three to four key points and begin to develop you visual aids (PPT, handouts etc)
5. Design one slide for each key point – If you’re not using PPT , this might mean one poster for each key point, or one photograph… etc..
6. Draft your session plan – include the questions and activities you’ll use to tranfer to learning in an engaging and effective way.
This whole process can take as little as five minutes. Especially if you really know your subject and are adept at cutting and pasting images into handouts or PPT slides. I know this because I’ve demosntrated exactly how to do this dozens of times, and usually ask my class to come up with the subject so I can show them that expertise in the subject matter is not essential.
While this is aimed primarily at people undertaking the Cert IV or Diploma in vocational education. It can be applied in any corporate or workplace context. No matter what the context – consider my pro tips and make sure you keep the audience at the centre of your decision-making. It’s up to you to fit the content into the session in such a way as to engage and develop the skills and knowledge of your audience. It’s not about making you look good. Believe me, you’ll look great if you put your audience first!
Excerpt from our Diploma of Leadership and Management program
Documenting behaviours
To analyse emotional behaviours, collecting and recording your data accurately is essential. It is difficult to recall subtle emotional behaviours accurately more than 60 minutes after they are displayed as your own emotions will colour the real events. There are two main ways of recording emotional behaviours in a workplace:
Journaling
Audio diaries
A simple journal (such as a notebook) can be used to capture interactions with others for later analysis and review. A typical layout for this type of record should include:
Time of event
Brief objective description of behaviours observed
Subjective review of the emotions experienced by each person
Analysis – by asking why each behaviour and emotion is likely to have occurred.
Keeping a journal like this over a period of 2 to 4 weeks will provide you with ample data to review. The review process should be conducted with the outlook of helping you develop behaviours that result in better emotional and performance outcomes for you and your colleagues.
A 2019 study of 48 nurses in the US who recorded audio diaries of their emotional experiences each day were encouraged to make unfiltered remarks and record levels of emotional states rather than express exact emotions. For example, an A would represent a great experience, and an F would represent a negative experience. The design of how you might utilise an audio diary will depend on your circumstances. But the ease of recording your own voice shortly after experiencing an emotional event has its benefits.
Using the right language to record your emotions
Psychologists generally agree that humans have about six to eight core emotions. These are:
Sad
Happy
Disgusted
Angry
Surprised
Fearful
Or on a scale between:
joy and sadness
acceptance and disgust
fear and anger
surprise and anticipation
Helpful tools such as ‘emotion wheels’ – which are available via an online search – can help you to discern emotions more clearly by giving you words to describe them. Putting that into practice will improve your emotional vocabulary and help you to better understand the real emotions of any given situation.
We have developed a journal as part of the assessment to record, analyse and review your emotional performance over time. This tool has been an integral conduit to improved EI and performance within workplaces and social environments.
Taking regular account of your emotional states, their implications and outcomes, is the proven method for making improvements and getting better results.
The new text book for the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment went to print on Friday 20th May, 2016.
The new requirements for RTOs with the previous TAE10 on scope include an “external validation” of the four assessment units (below) as a minimum, to be submitted as a part of the scope ‘re-application’. SpecTraining understands that any repplication takes both time and money, so the external validation of the assessment materials will be given to those RTOs who require it and who will be using the text book for their assessments.
The core unit assessment systems that will be validated are:
TAEASS401,
TAEASS402,
TAEASS403,
TAEASS502
We have upgraded the quality of the mapping in the textbook to improve the validation process itself for your internal validation.
The book should be in circulation soon – and we’ve talked to the publisher, McGraw Hill Education, to include the external validation documentation and recommendations.
They are ready to download now – or just send an enquiry to SpecTraining.
If you’ve already applied for the scope addition, we look forward to working with you.
I’ve often wondered why groups of seemingly intelligent and powerful people find it so hard to come to a decision. Government question time comes to mind, as do boards of directors I have had dealings with. But anecdotes aside, there is now real evidence explaining this interesting anomaly.
In a Harvard Business Review article (Feb 24th), researchers found that “power hampers the ability of leaders to work with other leaders”.
Sociological research like this has its limitations, as there is cultural bias and traditionally larger statistical errors. So there will always be exceptions. But I can’t help but agree with the findings based on my experiences.
Despite the fact that “power makes people more creative when working alone”, innovation an inspiration seemed to be among the lowest when groups of ‘leaders’ were trying to work together. And this was consistent across studies. The figure from the HBR article shows how outcomes fall dramatically as group power increases.
Worth noting at this point, is that the exceptions to the general statistical likelihood. In other words, what is the difference between those leaders who don’t work well together, and those that do? The research didn’t point directly to this, but inferred something about those who failed, and thus what to look out for in order to succeed.
If you need to work with other leaders, consider your vulnerability, self-efficacy and emotional intelligence. If you go in to a negotiation-based team environment, then you need to up you interpersonal skills to ensure your ideas are heard, but so are those of others.
Have you run into this yourself? Share your stories in the comments!
For around 30 years, Emotional Intelligence (EI or EQ) has been slowly but surely gaining popularity as a means by which to identify the human skills that some people seem to have as an innate quality, while others don’t seem to have at all. While I’m not about to re-hash all the tools and theories that have abounded since this fascinating subject arose, I am intensely interested in the measuring tools we use to judge such qualities (or lack thereof). The market includes the use of personality tools such as MBTI and DiSC, for which I don’t necessarily have a fondness for, but hey, it’s up to the end user right? There are also specific tools such as Genos and Daniel Goldman’s own ESCI. But let’s imagine for a moment that your manager does not seem to qualify in the high EQ quadrant. Let’s say they are not ‘aware’ and therefore are not likely to undertake such a test to tell them something they either don’t want to know, or have very little patience for anyway. If you’re in this boat right now, then you’re also wondering how long it will be before it sinks; because leadership without EI is akin to an ocean liner with a politician at the helm – lots of talk but little direction. The answer – well – I can only posit what has worked for me and those I’ve spoken to over the last few years. And that is the following:
1. Work on your own EQ first. There are essentially four aspects to your EQ, so figure out what needs improvement in your own world first. Is it you recognition and management of your own emotions? Positively effecting the emotions of others? Using emotions to effect work outcomes? These are all components of a well-rounded emotionally intelligent leader.
2. Use that enhanced ability to work “with” your manager to investigate their views on emotion in the workplace. Do they take it seriously enough to invest in professional development of their team?
3. Set about ‘managing up’. Use your skills to improve your manager’s life through a better understanding of the effects of emotions between you, them and your work colleagues. The best proponent of this is a dear friend of mine who became trapped inside a massive organisation surrounded by ‘yes-people’ and ‘WIIFM zombies’. She stopped to ask people how they were feeling and what the impact of recent events had on their personal journey. The reaction was one of disbeleif, confusion and sometimes pure cognitive dissonnance! “No one’s ever asked me that before”, “No one’s ever spoken to me like that before”, and so on. She continued with this line of questioning over a period of months until people became used to communicating about emotions. This simple action improved her team’s willingness to challenge normal behaviours and seek for better workplace conditions. The culture is changing for the better! In the end – it’s a process. But people have turned on to the feelings of others in a way they haven’t ever thought of before.
