Assessing and certifying generic skills: What is happening in vocational education and training?

Assessment and certification of generic skills is an essential aspect of the current research focus on the place of such skills in Australian vocational education and training (VET). This research, therefore, set out to gauge practitioners' understandings of generic skills and the ways in which they incorporate the delivery and assessment of these skills into their training programs. At the same time, it was important to determine the critical elements of effective assessment of these skills.

In the initial phases of the study a review of current literature was undertaken and a desktop audit of training packages was conducted. Semi-structured interviews were then conducted with managers of assessment and teachers and learners in six registered training organisations across Australia. This sample included three large public registered training organisations, a rural adult and community education (ACE) provider, two senior secondary colleges delivering VET-in-schools programs and a large Commonwealth Government agency. The informants to the study were delivering a range of training package qualifications in both on- and off-the-job training environments. It should be noted that the learner perspective in the study should be treated with caution since it is based on only six students.

The desktop audit of training packages revealed that, apart from the Mayer key competencies,¹ which are included in tabular form in every unit of competency, other generic skills are included as discrete units of competency, as elements of competency, or as performance criteria. They are also embedded within vocational units of competency. Thus, while generic skills may be quite explicit in some cases, they are implicit in many more. This variation in coverage within training packages has a direct and sometimes negative bearing on practitioners' understandings of generic skills, and the approaches they take to assessing them.

Such variation has inevitably generated inconsistent outcomes in their delivery and assessment. This is evident in the cases examined in this study. Informants acknowledged that they are uncertain about the best strategies for dealing with generic skills and suggested that clearer definitions, assessment guidelines and supporting resources would make them more confident about their own approaches to delivering and assessing them.

The language associated with the concept of generic skills is quite complex and there is no real agreement as to what constitutes these skills, let alone how to validly and reliably recognise them in practice. It is evident that practitioners do not speak, or think, about generic skills in the same terms.

While some literature questions the transferable nature of generic skills, the informants to this study were broadly convinced that it is in their transferability that the value of generic skills lies.

Further, they considered that generic skills are valued by industry because of the crucial role they play in competent workplace performance. There is a strong sense, however, that while employers can and do provide technical skill development, they are reluctant or unable to take on the task of building the generic skills of their employees. Thus, there is a clear imperative for practitioners to ensure that generic skills are included in the training that they provide. The informants also suggested that the lack of clear definition hampers the promotion of these skills to industry, employers and employees. And, despite the general consensus that generic skills are valuable, practitioners are unclear as to how they should be assessed.

The Mayer key competencies are an important articulation of generic skills. They have been included in training packages from the outset, and thus it is opportune to determine how practitioners have delivered and assessed them. In most of the cases, the key competencies were being integrated into other competencies. As a consequence, they were being assessed holistically as part of the overall assessment of vocational competencies; that is, their achievement has been inferred rather than explicitly measured.

In only one instance were the key competencies being directly assessed and reported on, utilising a set of agreed benchmarks of performance for each of the three Mayer key competency levels. In this example, the opportunities for the assessment of these competencies were being identified within real work tasks generated from vocational units of competency. Even though the key competencies were not assessed separately, judgements about their achievement were explicit. Learners were provided with clear guidelines on the evidence required for assessment at each level, and were actively encouraged to determine their own readiness for that assessment.

The research also sought to establish the extent to which broader generic skills were being addressed in training programs. Several of the case study sites have recognised the need to address broader generic skills by formulating sets of what they call 'shared behaviours', 'core competencies' or 'professional skills'. Generally, however, they are still inferring the achievement of these skills from performance in vocational activities.

Informants from two organisations have committed considerable time and resources to the development of comprehensive strategies for the assessment of generic skills. They have also placed great emphasis on the information that they provide to their learners. The methods being used by most of the practitioners to assess generic skills, however, are clearly no different from those being used for any other VET assessment.

In relation to recording, reporting and certifying generic skills, none of the organisations has established formal systems to achieve this. A considerable amount of generic skills assessment, therefore, is going unreported in those instances where those skills are being inferred but not recorded, reported or certified. In one instance, however, an informal system for certifying key competencies is in place, and learners are provided with a statement of attainment outlining key competency achievement at the various levels. This documentation is being used by learners as supplementary evidence to their formal academic records and testamurs.

The lack of formal reporting is largely due to the fact that there is no national policy to underpin the formal recognition and certification of generic skills. More importantly, there are significant administrative and financial disincentives working against the implementation of a formal reporting system. The first is the requirement to modify existing student information management systems to allow for the reporting of generic skills results, and the second is how additional enrolment requirements that might be required can be financed.

What factors are critical in the assessment of generic skills? In the main, these do not differ from those required for any valid, reliable, flexible and fair assessment. The issues are very similar to those constantly raised by practitioners discussing competency-based assessment in general, and do not constitute anything which is unique to the assessment of generic skills. However, because generic skills are less explicitly described in training packages and key competency levels are difficult to determine, there is considerable potential for invalid judgements to be made about the quality of learner performance.

Therefore, it is not surprising that informants called for better information to support assessment decision-making (such as guidelines for evidence collection, including the delineation of performance requirements or benchmarks) to ensure consistency across assessors and across and between registered training organisations. It is also crucial that assessors themselves understand what generic skills are and know how they might be demonstrated. Without such understanding, it is unlikely that effective delivery and assessment will occur.

Informants also consistently commented that specific resources and funding need to be dedicated to the assessment of generic skills to enable it to be done properly. They saw that delivery and assessment had to be flexible to ensure that there were many opportunities for learners to be assessed in their achievement of generic skills.

Many informants identified the importance of the learner's role in generic skills learning and assessment. Some placed considerable emphasis on providing well-designed, clearly articulated, comprehensive and readily accessible information to learners, assessors, employers and other stakeholders on generic skills and how they might be demonstrated and assessed. Such information can raise levels of awareness and result in a greater level of commitment by learners and teachers to the recognition of these skills.

The implications of these findings are clear. There is a need to formally certify generic skills. For generic skills to be accepted by all VET stakeholders as a critical component of training, they must be actively promoted as valuable competencies to achieve. If their importance were formally recognised and certificated, then learners would be more motivated to acquire generic skills. Moreover, it would assist employers if learners' attainment of these skills were more clearly described.

Practitioners also need clear directions as to which generic skills should be fostered and assessed, and how this should be accomplished. This requires a revision of the way that generic skills are incorporated into training packages, to make them more explicit. As well as improving the level of guidance to practitioners, such a revision would also help to minimise inconsistent generic skills assessment.

However, VET practitioners also require further professional development support in order that their own skills, knowledge and attitudes are sufficient to enable them to deliver and assess generic skills.

Therefore, the study suggests that:

• national VET policy be augmented to include a framework for the reporting and certification of generic skills
• funding be allocated to support the full implementation of such policy revision
• generic skills be more broadly promoted to key stakeholders
• training packages and assessment resources be further developed to assist practitioners to conduct effective generic skills assessment
• professional development programs be offered to practitioners to build their skills and knowledge about the delivery and assessment of generic skills.

These actions would confirm the central role that generic skills have to play in vocational education and training in Australia now and into the future.

1 The Mayer key competencies are: collecting, analysing and organising information; communicating ideas and information; planning and organising activities; working with others and in teams; using mathematical ideas and techniques; solving problems; and using technology.