ANNEX E - 5
student progress on the basis of demonstrated achievement of these outcomes. Assessments are not
tied to time served in formal educational settings.”
Assessment of workplace competence and knowledge can take a number of different forms. The
most common form of assessment in this scheme for explosives-related vocational qualifications is
the compilation of a portfolio of evidence. This requires candidates to assemble a variety of
different kinds of evidence, organised into a portfolio which is mapped against the components of
the ESA NOS. It is considered that providing such a variety of evidence types is a better test of
competence then producing purely one kind because it shows that the learner, their organisation
and the assessor have selected the type(s) of evidence that best demonstrate the learner’s
competence in a particular unit or element. For learners, the use of a wide variety of evidence (work
products, assessor questioning and observation etc) provides for a choice of assessment methods
that may better meet their preferred learning styles.
The portfolio can include any combination of the following types of evidence:
•
Work products, which are outputs that candidates produce as a natural consequence of
doing their jobs, such as reports, calculations, correspondence, minutes of meetings,
journals/diaries, etc.
•
Observation reports, where an assessor has watched the candidate carrying out a task, and
which might be backed up with photographs or video recordings of the observation.
•
Witness testimonies, which are short statements provided by a reliable person who has seen
the candidate carrying out a task.
•
Written evidence of the assessor’s verbal questions and the learner’s responses to these,
which might be backed up by audio recording of the questions and answers.
•
Written questions and the learner’s responses.
Written examinations can provide evidence of someone’s knowledge which, of course, is one
important element of competence and you will recall that we have defined competence as being a
blend of knowledge, skills, experience and attitude or behaviours. These could be written
examination papers or printouts of a touchscreen test (such as the UK driving theory test), short
answer tests, multiple choice papers, quizzes, or any acceptable form of formal test. However, it is
important to reiterate that any of these can only attest to someone’s knowledge – their ability to
translate this knowledge into workplace competence will still need to be assessed.
Whatever form the evidence takes, each piece of evidence must adhere to the same requirements,
i.e. it must be:
•
Sufficient: cover all the requirements of the standard;
•
Valid: provide genuine evidence of achievement;
•
Authentic: be the candidate’s own work;
•
Current: give a current picture of competence/ knowledge;
•
Reliable: give consistently reproducible results
Many readers will understand that one of the issues in conducting performance appraisals is the
potential for sensitivity and potential subjectivity of judging performance, so we should consider
whether assessment using this regime of the ESA NOS removes or reduces this. An active user
34
in
the UK has pointed out that the assessor still has to apply his/her own qualified opinion of the
evidence that has been presented (in a way that is similar to the CPD requirements used in any
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SAFEX Newsletter No.50, 3rd Qtr. 2014
ANNEX E - 6
professional registration activity). Assessment by a suitably trained, qualified and experienced
assessor, against an ESA NOS means that everyone is subject to the same requirements. The same
practitioner stated that “The use of the ESA NOS removes the 'mystery' of what competence 'looks
like' (the phrase is often heard that someone ‘doesn't know what they are looking for but they know
it when the see it’). The use of the ESA NOS helps assessors to 'see' what they are looking for.”
Capturing the material required for the individual’s portfolio can cause learners a lot of heartache,
however, it is not necessary to keep thick files of paper-based documents. Some qualifications
centres work entirely electronically, some are entirely paper-based and some use a mixture of both.
The important thing from Voglers perspective was that it should be simple and make use of single
pieces of evidence against many units/elements.
The ‘standard’ outcome-based assessment methodology relies on regular face-to-face contact
between the assessor and the learner. With the learners being based in Estonia and the assessor and
verifiers being in the UK, this clearly had the potential to become excessively costly and difficult to
balance against the perceived business benefits. The experience of a Swedish company showed that
it is quite possible to conduct much of the required planning and assessment of documentary
evidence remotely, making use of teleconferencing and file sharing software such as Skype and
DropBox. Clearly it is essential for the assessor to see the learner in the workplace actually doing
their work but with good planning it is possible to keep such visits to only the minimum times and
duration. This requirement must be clear to the qualifications centre from the outset.
UNDERTAKING THE QUALIFICATIONS
Registering the learners. In the end, costs and availability led to us registering only one candidate in
this pilot project. The actual process was simple, though, with most effort going into making sure
that the assessor, IV and candidate knew exactly how the assessment would take place.
Assessment planning
One of the great benefits of this qualification was the ability for the assessor and IV to work from UK,
with the candidate in Estonia. Because much of the evidence would be company documentation,
one of the challenges was to decide exactly what would need to be translated into English so that
the assessor and verifiers could be sure that the Standards had been achieved.
Working remotely to reduce costs to the company given that the assessors are from UK and the
learners in Estonia, while still meeting the awarding body’s requirement for rigour in verification, did
not prove as difficult as might have been imagined. We made maximum use of videoconferencing
and Witness Testimony to support the remote assessment, with the assessor and internal verifier
having briefed witnesses on the value and qualities required of their testimony.
We made use of recent changes to Estonian explosives legislation and company priorities to provide
a real-world basis for work that would be undertaken by the candidate, which would provide
evidence for some of the complex units and elements of the qualification. These changes to storage
regulations and the introduction of EX2 vehicles for transportation of explosives required the
company to review its explosives safety management policy and procedures.
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