Introduction

This 'Assessment Guide' has been produced as part of the work of the KeyNet Project. This is a Project that has looked at the possible role of 'Key Skills' in increasing the employment potential of young students and trainees, and older (40+) job seekers. The 'Guide' is aimed at trainers and employers and looks at assessment strategies and techniques that are used in the partner countries participating in the KeyNet Project. It is hoped that it will be used with another document produced by the Project that looks at different methods of delivering 'Key Skills' in school or college, in a training context and 'on the job'.

It is appreciated that trainers and employers are very busy people, with little time to research new, and perhaps, more appropriate ways of finding out (assessing) how effective are their training strategies, the levels of key skill achievement of their trainees or employees, their strengths and weaknesses. As a result, this 'Assessment Guide' attempts to present information and ideas in a straightforward way, by:

explaining why assessment is important (Sections 1 and 2).
describing the different types of assessment Section 3).
describing and explaining a range of 'situations', e.g. in a school, in a training situation, in a factory or hair dressing salon, and the associated assessment strategies (Sections 4-8).
presenting examples of ways of assessing, e.g. by oral questioning and discussion, by practical test, through a formal examination (Annexes 1-8).

The trainer should look study the Examples given in Sections 4-8 to find contexts similar to her/his. Then, when building up an assessment programme, examples of actual assessment techniques can be found in Annexes 1-8. Within a short time, the examples used in this 'Guide' can be added to, amended and replaced by ones designed by the trainer or employer, and which more appropriately 'fits the purpose'.

The various examples illustrated in this 'Guide' are drawn from the four partner countries participating in the KeyNet project (Germany, Greece, Sweden, the United Kingdom). Nevertheless, experience during the life of the Project suggests that each technique can be used effectively in any context or country. They are trans-national.

This 'Assessment Guide' is accompanied and supported two other documents:

an 'Employers' Assessment Guide, which explains the importance of assessment and key skills in developing a more efficient work force.

a 'Job Seekers' Guide', which explains the importance of key skills in building up their levels of general skills achievement and thus, employability.

 

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