Types of risks in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA)

Risk assessment for the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Regardless of what you are assessing, there will be risks and, in this instance, I’m not referring to health and safety. Risks are anything that can compromise the assessment process. In the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA), we need to aware of the risks involved so we need to think about what could go wrong and then plans in place to prevent them. Its like a risk assessment for achievement. There will be risks to the learner and risks to the assessor so let’s have a look at these.  

Risks to learners in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Risks to learners could be stress. We all get a little nervous when we think about assessment even if we’ve been practicing the skill for multiple years. The assessment gives you that little self-doubt and this is normal, but we need to look at it from the learner’s perspective and how do they feel about assessment.

Let’s just say in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA), we’ve just started the course and all of a sudden, a spring a surprise assessment on you. Even a formal assessment which counts for nothing towards the qualification will make most individuals anxious let alone if I was to suggest your certificate depends on it. So how can we minimise learner stress? Do we expect too much too soon on our learners? OR we pushing them too hard as assessors?

Minimising stress in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

In the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement (CAVA) you always go at your own pace whether that’s the self-study or classroom based. The only difference is that the training will be delivered at a pace but ultimately, you decide when you complete your assessments. We’ve minimised the stress by giving all learners access to all materials. When individuals are given too much to do or not enough time to do it, what do they do? They give up, they make mistakes which doesn’t reflect their whole work, or they cheat. I have done this myself as a 20-year-old under the pressures of balancing university and several jobs. Sometimes the risks are learner simply not knowing how to reference their work correctly. This is why its important that we get to take time to get to know our learners. 

Assessor risks in the Level 3 Certificate in Assessing Vocational Achievement

Now what about assessor risks? The most obvious risk is your workload. We all have busy lives; I have two little children running around keeping me occupied along with balancing other jobs. There is a pressure to complete your work. In the case of freelance assessing roles, you only get paid for completing work therefore there is automatic pressure to get through your work quickly to move onto the next learner. This pressure leads to mistakes from the assessor.

Bias is another risk you’ll come across. You will develop relationships with your learners, and this is ok. You will also get on better with some learners than others and this is perfectly normal. We may feel some learners cannot handle rejection as well or that they may be more confrontational about it. Therefore, assessors may be biased in their assessing to avoid this conflict. This is why it is crucial that we are impartial and show transparency in our assessing. This will reduce complaints and appeals and also lower your own stress levels.