ACTA V5 Module 5 Learning Experience

This is my module 5 learning experience (for personal reference).

After the assessment plan for the ‘Recommend products and services’ was received, I read through the assessment plan to understand the flow and criteria used in evaluating learners competency. At the same time I will clarify with stakeholders on any uncertain points in the assessment plan. 

There are a few items to clarify with stakeholders from the assessment plan.

1) Legal environment – Lemon Law. The Lemon Law takes effect from the 1 September 2012. The Assessment Plan was last updated on the 24 February 2009 and the legal environment mentioned are only the Occupational health and safety regulations of Singapore as well as Consumer Protection Act 2003. I will clarify with the training center legal or administrative department on the need to comply with Lemon Law as part of the assessment plan.

2) Briefing and Logistics checklist. The briefing and logistics checklist is missing from the Assessment Plan. I would clarify with the developer on the approach towards briefing and logistics preparation for the assessment.

The logistics checklist as seen below has been used in the preparation of the venue.

The assessment briefing and oral questioning table has been setup as below. It has mineral water, bowl with sweets, stationery, related documents, tables and chairs.

The role-play area has also been setup with 3 sets of winter wear and the winter accessories are placed in front of the clothing display.

The logistics checklist is a very good reference on what needs to be prepared for the assessment. It will ensure reliability (consistency) in the way the assessment is delivered. In my company, logistics checklists have been prepared for some training. Those training without a logistics checklist, shortfall of training aids usually happen and I will have to use replacement or purchase new training aids on the spot in order to ensure consistent learner experience. This will be something which I will look into developing for all training courses.                                     

A 28mins video of the assessment from preparing the candidate for assessment to conducting the assessment (role-play to oral questioning) has been recorded.

The briefing checklist shown below has been used.

Interpersonal skills such as greeting the candidate when she arrived, trying to maintain smile constantly, having chit-chat, making her feel at ease and clarifying with her on any doubts were used. After viewing through the video and reflecting upon the interpersonal skills used, I realized maintaining a smile throughout the assessment may be difficult due to the tense situation in an assessment setting. It is especially so when I’m writing notes in the assessment record. In the prior recordings, I remembered asking the candidate would she like to have a drink. But in the latest video, I have forgotten about it. To fill in these two gaps, I believe more frequent assessment application will help to be familiarize with it.

The following Principles of Assessment were used during the assessment process:

- Valid: The role-play process and questions used for oral questioning are based on the assessment plan.

- Reliability: Utilizing the logistics checklist to setup the scene and the briefing checklist to brief the candidate.

- Fairness: Identify on any special needs and explaining the appeal option to the candidate.

- Flexibility: Tried to close the gap after the role-play by probing the candidate on areas where she falls short.

The following Rules of Evidence were used during the assessment process:

- Authentic: Validate the identity of the candidate through the identification card and she herself perform the role play and response to questions on the oral questioning.

- Valid: The evidence she provide is compared against the assessment plan.

- Sufficient: There’s a need to have sufficient responses of evidences. In the role-play, the candidate achieved 50% competency (2 gaps) and during probing, she is able to close one of the gap. But there is still one area where she is NYC.

- Current: Her knowledge and skill should be in-line with the company SOP and the company SOP should be updated to industry standards. But on the cleaning methods mentioned, she did not adhere to the company SOP.

At the end of the assessment, I checked with the learner on how she felt about the role-play. The purpose is to give her time to reflect upon it and to self-identify any gaps. At the end of the assessment when the result is announced to her, I started by mentioning about her strength before moving the gaps area. The purpose is to provide a balance feedback. 

Base on Training and Adult Education Professional Competency Model, the following Professional Values & Ethics was used:

- Principled: The assessment was conducted with high standards of integrity and objectivity. I align closely with the Assessment Plan, with the criteria of assessment spell out clearly for the candidate, and the Competence and Not Yet Competence area clearly explain to the candidate.

- Aspirational: I believe in continual learning and gave the Not Yet Competence candidate an option of undergoing retraining so that she can retake the assessment in 3 months time. I also communicated with the candidate the areas where she should spend more time on so she will be successful in her assessment the next round.

I looked through the video again and identified some possible areas that I could have done better:

- Could do more to make candidate feel at ease during briefing by asking ‘Would you like to have a drink?’

- Could check with candidate does she has a mobile phone, which she will need to switch to silent mode

- If I have greater background experience on retail, the probing methodology could have been better. 

I did a review on the assessment process and particularly on the application of the concepts on Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence, and find that the particular challenge I faced for both is in ascertaining the validity of her Underpinning Knowledge and Performance Criteria. The absence of the Competency Standards meant that I will have to assess based on personal experience of the candidate performance. This will be quite subjective as I do not have prior retail experience, so there’s no standard benchmark which I can reference to. The second challenge I believe I face is to decide what sufficient evidences she has to show in order to be deemed as competent (Rules of Evidence: Sufficient). The assessment plan does not indicate the sufficiency of evidence required. But as the team work through the assessment practices, there is a common consensus on what is the benchmark for competency as well as the sufficiency of evidence. The familiarity that comes with the assessment role-play makes it easier for assessor to assess the competency of the candidate.

The pictures of the completed assessment records are uploaded.

I noticed that considerable amount of time is spent in filling in the assessment record. If there is time 

constrain, handwriting might be short-formed and it may be unreadable to other stakeholders. The momentum of assessment might also be broken if time is spent writing on the assessment record instead of flowing through naturally with the role-play. I feel one way might be the use of checklist to quickly identify and check against the evidences display by the candidate.

In the review through the recording of the assessment evidence, a few areas of improvements could be considered:

- Digitizing the recording – Handwriting between assessors is different and the writing style might not be legible from other readers. It will be better to have the assessor input the assessment notes directly into the computer or a tablet. The information can also be captured real-time by the school.

- Putting a tick at each evidence to show precisely where the candidate shows competency or not yet competency. This will allow easy retrace of information.

The assessment plan provides a good base for the assessment. There are opportunities where the Assessment Plan can be improved further and they are:

- Having a logistics and briefing checklist in the Assessment Plan will allow reliability (consistency) in the manner assessments are conducted by the different assessors.

- The document has not been updated for quite a while as can be seen the last update date of 24 February 2009. It may not be up-to-date with the SOP or legal requirements (e.g. the Lemon Law).

- There are no guidelines on how to close the gap. Different assessors may have different approach in closing the gap or some may not attempt to close the gap.

Under Role Play Rules of Evidence, the assessment criteria can be more specific, measurable, observable and contextualize. An example of which, the type of product performance feature is the candidate required to demonstrate (contextualize). If it covers winter clothing, what is the scope of features is he expected to know (specific).

It will be good for the assessor to be from the Retail industry to be able to conduct probing skills more effectively.