Consistent and effective methods of assessing the skills, ability and knowledge of learners is crucial to learner engagement and improved learning outcomes. Good assessment practices allow trainers to better understand individual strengths and weaknesses, how to set goals and targets for learners, where to direct attention, resources and expertise, and how to adapt teaching practice to achieve greater learner success.

Generic of the shelf assessment tools that can get straight to the competencies the learner is to acquire are very hard to find. That’s why Vitals Consultants’ Custom Assessment Tools can make a critical difference in your organisation’s performance and compliance. Our experts in custom assessment tools development will work with you to create highly targeted tools using a scientific process that is based on industry-best practices.

The Training and Assessment Strategy (TAS) is a document that informs every training action you take in your organisation, and in cases of Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) you will need to present your TAS at an ASQA audit. The TAS contains information on training package requirements and shows how you have been responsive to industry and learner needs.

For a VET qualification, it should identify and address the arrangements for assessment, and explain how individual units will be delivered and assessed.

As the RTO, you must also describe how you will meet the requirements for training packages/accredited courses, and be responsive to industry and learner needs, as determined by the Standards for Registered Training Organisations 2015.

You will need to consult with employers and people in the industry, relating to the qualifications/units you are delivering.

Contextualisation is a crucial process of adapting the resources to suit your learners, in particular, the assessments.

So, you must look at your cohort of learners and decide which assessment methods are most suitable for them.

You will need to consider, for example:

• The ability of your learners and current level/knowledge
• The resources and facilities you have available, e.g. do they have access to the workplace?
• What industry/jobs are your learners from or are aiming to go into?
• Do the case studies suit your learner cohort’s goals?
• How you will go about collecting evidence of assessments, and how much evidence you will need.
• Should the learners be completing group activities? Do they need to be adapted to suit individual learners?
• Can learners complete the activities in the timeframe given? You may need to adjust these to suit the length of time you are running the course for.

Training resources are increasingly readily available with the vast majority of these being available as web-based training and learning resources. The temptation is, as was the case before the online options, these are ready to use with very little effort required from the RTO’s end. The fact remains, however, that these resources are generic and in most cases do not address the individual organisation’s learner cohort needs. This has caused many instances of RTOs being deemed critically non-compliant during an ASQA audit. Using generic assessment tools is clearly in contradiction with any RTO’s Training and Assessment Strategy where RTOs go to lengths to convince ASQA they will be addressing Learner needs and requirements.