Guest posting to voced-coord email list
Item 2 of 8: First, Second and Third Impressions

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 19:03:40 +1100
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Patrick Griffin (p.griffin@edfac.unimelb.edu.au)
Subject: VocEd:Patrick Griffin (guest)First, second and third impressions

It was somewhat of a surprise when I was asked to be the online guest. Of course I agreed immediately. One of the reasons I agreed quickly to be a part of this is that I thought I had a fair bit to learn from you all. So I hope you might try and "teach this old dog a few new tricks". My Centre(s) have been studying the school to work, traineeship and workplace assessment for several years and we are just about to get underway in a couple of new projects. Perhaps I'll meet some of you as we travel around.

I thought as a start, we would make a few suggestions about what we might talk about and then see what you suggest. My specialty is assessment, everything from school entry to college and university in the traditional educational framework and competency and vocational assessment in the alternative pathways that are emerging. So I can have an opinion of matters associated with assessment in most areas.

Perhaps I should start by nominating a couple of themes.

First I'd like to look at what we have learned from our research over the past few years and what we are trying to do about it. The studies have been about school to work, early school leavers, generic and/ or key competencies, labour market program assessment, literacy and numeracy in the workplace and more recently, competencies for workplace assessment, and then factors that affect quality of assessment. Some of it may be a bit dry, but we'll try, with your help, to make it relevant and useful.

Next we could talk about workplace assessment itself. There has been a lot of talk about whether assessment is on the job or off the job, but frankly it seems to me that WHERE the assessment takes place is less important WHAT it tells us. So we have been introducing the notion of assessment IN the workplace as against assessment FOR the workplace. I'd like to generate some discussion about this distinction and see where it leaves us with the teachers' role in competency assessment associated with traineeships and new apprenticeships. School and college based people may need to be more assertive in the competency assessment process.

Some years ago, a graduate student of mine looked at the school to work transition, using employers' expectations and teachers' beliefs of competencies that students had acquired by the time they left school. He explored a set of competencies that Richard Sweet has already written about in this online discussion, the American SCANS competencies. We used these because Eric Mayer's committee had not been formed and the SCANS were about the best life skill definition around. They still are, despite our best efforts.

A sample of employers in small businesses associated with the retail industry were surveyed to find out what they expected school leavers to be able to do and what attitudes to work they hoped the school leavers would have. Later we visited all the employers (about 60) to see what they found after employing a school leaver. We also asked teachers to describe the life skills and competencies they thought students had acquired during the last three years of school.

The gaps between employer observations and teacher beliefs were huge in basic skills, work maturity, understanding of the expectations of the workplace, appearance and presentation, and capacity to prepare appropriate applications and resumes. We were surprised to learn about the importance employers attached to maturity, attitudes, appearance and presentation. These were regarded as more important than the workplace skills the students would have to develop on the job.

In another study, we interviewed a sample of early school leavers to see why they left school, and what had happened to them after leaving school before the end of year 10. Again we focussed on life skills and beginning workplace skills. This project also identified several predictable characteristics of unemployed youth. They all left school early and for a range of reasons. Among these were discipline difficulties, sometimes leading to expulsion; literacy difficulties, a lack of interest in education, and a belief that education was not important for getting a job.

They also exhibited a naive view of their ability to manage economically and to handle funds they got through social security. Most had retained their unrealistic expectations of employment and had met with rejection in the workplace. As a check we interviewed employers who had given them a chance and learned a lot about how they survived or not and why employers agreed in the first place and then felt some relief at the end of the employment period. We did not go into the reasons for leaving work, but we wish we had. Employers argued that the young people presented poorly prepared applications and/or presented themselves in an unacceptable manner when applying for work. They were also disappointed that they generally did not develop new skills on the job as they were expected to.

In other studies of adult literacy program and adult labour market programs these issues keep reappearing in the data and results. Three things are important for getting a job. First is how you apply and present. Second is the support given from people who know your capabilities and potential and the third is the ability to learn on the job.

Three impressions!

• First- appearance; 
• second - references and extra curricular activity and
• third- skills and capacity to learn on the job. 

We did not get much evidence that employers were looking for ready-made workers; rather they wanted someone who would fit in and learn to do the work. We became convinced that all students need to be convinced that "you only get one chance to make a first impression" and take some steps to make the best of each chance. Teachers' reports on the student's workplace potential is by and large the basis of the second impression, (although many employers were judging this through the young person's social, sport, community and other extra curricular activities). The third impression was formed around what the applicant could do and could learn. The third impression is what workplace assessment or assessment for the workplace is about.

In a way, the training agenda has focussed on the third impression as far as school leavers and traineeships are concerned. Now that curriculum is being replaced by competencies as the currency of credentials, the pressure to develop competencies among young school leavers as a result of VET programs may increase. Competency assessment will become the way that trainees and school leavers gain recognition. If teachers are to help school leavers in this area then the teachers themselves may need to be trained in competency assessment techniques.

There must be something here that we can talk about.

Patrick Griffin