Strengths and limitations of assessment methods in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA)

Choosing assessments for your Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Choosing the assessments to use will depend on your purpose, what you are assessing, any restrictions and this may be the awarding body limiting the type of assessments you can use. The Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA) has some restrictions, and these can be dependent on the awarding body. For example, we switched our qualifications for our full teacher training and assessing suite to a different organisation where we have more flexibility adapting our assessments to meet the needs of learners. Granted it costs more but it gives our learners more room for manoeuvre.  

Regardless of which assessment methods you choose, there will always be pros and cons of each so let’s have a look at the most common methods used in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA). 

Observations in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Observations – observations are watching / observing to verify someone performing a skill. We could be sports fans and I am Everton fan, and we will watch our team and judge the players based on what we saw. It allows us to watch skills live. Strengths with observations is that it is quick and gives you an accurate picture of how someone performs in a situation. The issue with this is how do you verify that this actually occurred with no record?

This is why it is recommended that you follow up any communication with an email so you can evidence it. The limitation with observations is that the assessor may not be objective. We may dislike players because we dislike the team. As an Everton fan, we may have a tendency to have an unfair bias against Liverpool fans. So, it’s down to how to the assessor makes decisions.  

Products of work in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Products of work are evidence which is created in the workplace. This can be emails, appraisals, work experience etc which shows that the learner has done something. The best thing about work products is that they are a final representation of what has been done and if the learner has already done something in their job, we can use this as evidence instead of asking them to do it again.

Work products you could use in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA) could be assessment plans you’ve created as part of your job. The main limitation of work products is that they are often not sufficient on their own so therefore may need additional evidence to meet the learning outcomes.  

Questioning is probably the most common form of assessment. The assessor asks a series of questions to gauge the learner’s response for knowledge. In the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA), unit 1 Understanding the Principles and Practices of Assessment is carried out in the form of questions. This could be a series of questions or a long question which asks for an essay style response, or it can be verbal. The benefits are that it can be adapted and can easily follow up an observation. The limitations are the questions asked. Closed questions generally won’t offer much valuable information whereas open questions allow learners to give detail.

Witness testimonies in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Witness testimonies are the last assessment type we’ll cover. This is an expert such as a tutor, colleague or supervisor to witness times you’ve met a learning outcome. You see this in security a lot. I will go out and assess stewards in sports stadiums monitoring crowds and as part of the qualification requirements, we need to assess learners dealing with conflict. There will be times where conflict doesn’t happen, so we are unable to sign off this learning outcome.

Therefore, there is a chance after multiple visits that we will not get to observe it in person. The next best option is to get a witness such as a supervisor to confirm the learner has resolved conflict during their employment. This allows us to cover criteria which could not be observed in person. The limitations are that the witness may not be trained to give the expert opinion or may not know the qualification requirements to give the required detail needed.