Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 18:10:12 +1100
To: voced-coord@rite.ed.qut.edu.au
From: Shelley Gillis <s.gillis@edfac.unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Enhancing validity of assessments!

Janine wrote:

>I want to declare a De Bono Black Hat and suggest that it is unrealistic
>to expect that teachers would be able to satisfy all these requirements
>for all students across all competencies for a given course. ...................................................

Lets begin the debate...
Should we try and raise the standards and expectations of assessment practices in the pursuit of achieving a more valid, reliable, cost-effective and industry credible assessment system or should we merely reinforce the status quo. Is it a fair system if the assessments cannot be argued to be valid and reliable estimates of the student's true competency level. Claims such as " the assessment is valid because it is based on the competency standards" or "industry experts reviewed and accepted the assessment tasks, therefore they must be valid" will not achieve validity in and of itself. If the assessments are not valid, then how could they be fair?

Should time alone be the deciding factor for setting the assessment standards??? If teachers don't take on this responsibility, who will? Employers and supervisor's certainly do not have the time nor inclination given that vocational education is not their primary core business!!!! If educators don't lead the way in competency based assessment, who will????

Even if we aim to implement some of the recommended strategies for improving validity and reliability, we will be make forward progress. You will note that many of the strategies relate to the development of assessment tasks and procedures in the first instance - once these are validated, then the conduct of assessment for assessors does not require as much financial and human resources, only in terms of review and continuous improvement.

What would be extremely helpful is if an assessment task bank was created for each unit of competency within a training package. Teachers could actually place their assessment tasks on the web for others to review, modify etc for own use. Sharing such materials would minimise the amount of work etc involved in designing valid and reliable assessment tasks and procedures. Maybe this is something Janine could investigate for the VECO website????

Is there a need for such a task bank??

Shelley Gillis
Research Officer
Centre for Vocational Assessment Research
Assessment Research Centre
Dept of Learning Education and Development
Faculty of Education
The University of Melbourne
Parkville VIC 3052
Ph 03 9344 8572
Fax 03 9344 8790

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First published February 8, 2000. Last modified February 24, 2000.