Judging assessment in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA)

VARCS in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Assessing terms that you need to be familiar with are sufficiency, authenticity and currency. When I mark workbooks in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA), we did to mark against all three of these criteria.  

Sufficiency in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Sufficiency is about making sure the work covers the criteria. Do you have enough examples to ensure that all of the learner requirements have been met? When I teach the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA) I always inform my learners to aim for the magic number of five. This is five examples unless you hear otherwise. If you give one example, so what is the role of an assessor? It’s to measure learner’s progress. This is great but does it mean that learners know enough for us to be certain that the learner has the required knowledge to meet the assessment criteria.

Checking learner progress in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

I would ask my learners to expand of this, so the not only is the role of the assessor to check learners progress, it is also a requirement that assessors would create assessment plans, they are likely to teach these learners as well, we will coordinate assessments with other individuals involved such as employers, IQAs to ensure they can be available for whatever they need to do, we would need to verify witness statements to ensure they meet the qualification requirements, we would also ensure that we follow our organisational policies such as wearing lanyards to demonstrate we are teaching staff, enforce Covid-19 policies to ensure we meet legislation and ensure that assessment is carried out in line with the Health and safety at Work Act.

As we’ve now given multiple examples, we can safely be sure that me have sufficient knowledge to verify that the learner knows what they are talking about and meets the assessment criteria. The last thing we want is not to have enough information and the awarding body does not issue your Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA) and therefore you have to come back to finish.

Authenticity in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Authenticity is about ensuring that the work submitted is indeed your own. When I was at college, I worked with a friend to get the work done and our assignment was basically the same and this is because we worked together. I didn’t see anything wrong with this at the time but now when I teach the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA), I totally get where my assessor was coming from. It could have all been my friends work and that I was claiming the credit and vice versa.

The idea of authenticity is to ensure that the qualification holds credibility and doesn’t lose its value. If anyone could obtain the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA) then its probably not worth the paper, it’s written on. So, authenticity is about verifying it is the learner’s work. As much as the internet is a valuable source, for one reason or another which we won’t go into, learners could easily copy the work elsewhere. You could in theory copy the audio from the video or even rip off the blog. I remember once that a learner submitted my own handbook as their own work. Not cool, luckily, I saw the funny side.  

Data protection Act in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Lastly, we’ll talk about currency, how relevant is the work at the time of assessment. In writing these materials, Covid-19 was a law and now editing the material it no longer applies and has been withdrawn as an act. Another example the Data Protection Act where it has been updated to the General Data Protection Regulations. As assessors, we need to ensure that work produced covers the latest laws, legislation, technology or learning theories. More often than not learning theories that were introduced decades ago are still around but there are more modern theories which they have been based upon so are learners producing work that is relevant at the time of assessment or are they submitting work which is now expired?