Doing Things Differently Assessing Literacy, Numeracy and Reasoning Skills to Enhance Employment Outcomes Blanca Camacho and Larry Foster Australian Council for Educational Research

Background and context Assessment development What is The Vocational Indicator (VI)? Three Case Studies Discussion and questions In this Session…

Background o What ACER does  Services to the VET sector and industry o Assessment development at ACER o Response to client requests o Meeting clients’ needs

What is Vocational Indicator ? o a secure web-based o standardised assessment o identifies levels of candidates in vocational training in: numeracy literacy abstract reasoning mechanical reasoning o Designed to determine a candidate’s capability to cope with training Vocational Indicator

What are the Vocational Indicator’s benefits? o Teachers benefit from this online indicator as its results provide evidence of what and when to teach candidates. o Items specifically chosen for the targeted audience and relate to everyday situations and vocational context o Assists in the identification of candidates who will need remedial intervention

Vocational Indicator What are the Vocational Indicator’s benefits? o It offers a secure online testing format which engages candidates as it shows high resolution images and graphs in colour o Each section can be completed in 20 minutes o There is no need to install any software as the Indicator can be accessed via internet o All marking is automated

Vocational Indicator What are the Vocational Indicator’s benefits? o VI provides a secure, full and immediate report of the candidate’s results together with easy to understand descriptors o Reporting can be tailored to reflect the information and data most pertinent to particular groups o Results are compared to the overall group performance and benchmarks can be established by industry area Test Assessment master

Clients Large TAFE Institutes, Community Learning Centres, Players Associations, Enterprise RTOs in the Construction, Mining, Printing, Vocational Colleges, University at TAFE level and recruitment agencies

aim Reading ACSF 3.04

Basic calculations Simple Multiplication

ACSF Why the Alignment of VI with ACSF? o The Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF) describes levels of performance in the 5 core skills of: Learning Reading Writing Oral Communication Numeracy o A detailed mapping to indicator level, has been done for the VI tool to the following ACSF core skills: Literacy (reading) and Numeracy ACSF o Both have a role in describing levels of performance in LLN and predicting a learner’s likely capacity to cope with training o ACSF is a consistent national approach to the identification of the core skills

Alignment

Pre-training assessment Core skill: Reading

ACSF indicator

Enterprise RTO Abigroup Meets LLN compliance requirements Used for pre-training assessments Certificate IV in Civil Construction Supervision No prior qualifications, all males ages vary from mid-twenties to late forties Assists in identification of skills gaps and indicates any areas which need further investigation and/or remedial action Used to assess candidates who are near school leaving age, also mature age workers, who are transitioning into Apprenticeships Qual levels range from those enrolling for Apprenticeships to a number of starting in Traineeships at Cert II,III and level IV and the mixture of trades have been very diverse Great screen tool to identify areas for improvement for young players Used to assess all new players to identify gaps in LLN and provide support in their career development during their players career and after All male age ranges from 17 to 20, diverse background Individual remedial interventions RTOs and candidates profile

Findings Unveils reading comprehension and numeracy issues in candidates with good oral communication skills Reduces marking time of existing assessment Allows to design interventions for individuals and for groups Mechanical reasoning shows level of awareness or experience in the trades areas Early detection of gaps allows players to improve understanding of game strategies and to broaden future Career opportunities Allows for screening large groups in a consistent way Concentrates efforts, resources and time Provides feedback for future cohorts and LLN requirements

Identify and unpack LLN skills in Unit of Competency Identify learner’s core skill level Vocational Indicator Identify gaps/provide support Design individual/group training plans and assessment of LLN in Qual Candidate completes qualification RTO receives full funding Feedback transferred to next year’s program Model for LLN skills analysis

x x x x Semester Semester Semester Semester Next steps

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