learning insight
Do you know the score?
E-assessment is tempting because it is automated and cheap, but it’s by no means a useful measure of competence
Clive Shepherd
job responsibilities, and to do that they must be competent. Competence depends to some degree on the knowledge that employees have, but it is also underpinned by attitudes, skills and the confidence to put these into practice. Automated, computer-based assessment does a pretty good job of testing for knowledge, whether that’s factual, conceptual or procedural. In most jobs, there are certain things that you don’t have to think about, like what to do in an emergency, the names of important people in your organisation, the jargon that people in your trade or profession use every day, and important rules that simply must be followed to avoid you or your employee getting into trouble. Clearly you can check this knowledge with an e-assessment.
B
Human intervention required You could go a little further and test for cognitive skills – the ability to troubleshoot problems and make appropriate decisions. However, if no human is going to be involved in reviewing an employee’s answers, then this will only work for rule-based tasks in which there is a clear-cut right and wrong way to go about things. There’s no point asking multiple-choice questions about what to do in situations in which there are no rules, and judgments must be made on the balance of arguments. In these situations, accurate assessment demands a human intervention, whether that’s to grade an assignment or review a portfolio of evidence.
Nor will an e-assessment help you to assess a person’s attitude, their interpersonal skills, such as
y and large, employers are not really interested in their employees having knowledge. What they want is for them to be able to fulfil their
This post continues my commentary on the Learning Insights 2012 Report produced by Kineo for e.learning age magazine. The eighth of the 10 ‘insights’ is: assessment is changing.
selling, providing customer service or conducting an interview, or their motor skills, such as operating a forklift truck, typing or flying a plane. These skills need to be observed in an authentic situation, perhaps in a classroom or workshop, but much better on the job.
Over… and out In other words, unless your learning objectives are knowledge-centred, the multiple-choice quiz placed at the end of an e-learning module is going to tell you very little that matters. And if there is not a reasonable time gap between learning and assessment, then it is not even a reliable measure of knowledge, because as any last-minute exam crammer will testify, you can remember lots for very short periods. Ask yourself how much you remember of what you studied for your exams. An immediate knowledge test may give the learner some satisfaction that they have made some progress, and this may well be helpful, but it will not tell you whether the learning objectives have really been met.
Mutual delusion E-assessment is tempting because it is automated and cheap, but to believe it is a useful measure of competence is a delusion (some might say a conspiracy of mutual delusion – if you don’t tell
E-assessment is tempting because it is automated and cheap, but to believe it is a useful measure of competence is a delusion
e.learning age october 2013 7
anyone, then I won’t either). The best way to measure competence is through observation of actual job behaviour, which is something that most managers do routinely. So, to assess competence, however this is derived (through formal, informal or experiential learning), you need simply to ask managers whether their direct reports are exhibiting the desired competence. If you’re looking to make this process as efficient as possible, create an online questionnaire and have your learning management system (LMS or some other platform) send out a link to this a month or so after the learning intervention has been completed. This sounds simple and certainly can be as long as the employee really can demonstrate competence to their manager’s satisfaction. But you must have a plan in place to deal with those situations in which there is a shortfall. The most effective solution is likely to be providing the employee with coaching for as long as it takes to bridge the gap. Not cheap, of course. But then neither is a lack of competence.
Clive Shepherd is an e-learning consultant
@cliveshepherd
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