Workforce Readiness Competencies and Assessment

Question: Discuss about the Workforce Readiness for Competencies and Assessment. Answer: Introduction: As mentioned by Gronlund and Waugh (2009), assessment is a pivotal part of a training project. The idea of assessment largely involves the process of collecting information from different sources and with different tools; with the aim of developing an understanding about the learners knowledge and understanding. The major objective of assessment involves the accomplishment of the learning objectives, identifying the quality of knowledge disseminated and the level of information gathered by the learners (Willis, 1993). Moreover, the assessment opts for indentifying the learners capability of applying the gathered knowledge in the real life situation. For the successful completion of this project, the author has created a case study upon the professional training plan for the ABC Company. The company is facing the issue of employee incompetency in using the MS Word, which is increasing the time taken for a certain operational process and thus decreasing the productivity of the organiza tion by increasing the resource usage and operational cost. Moreover, the incompetency is creating stress among the employees, which is negatively affecting their confidence level, and directing them to resignation. Thus the company is facing a high employee turnover rate. Hence, it has arranged a training session for the newly appointed employees. There are 20 participants in the session who will be instructed with a hired professional trainer and guided by a buddy. It will be a ten days training on MS word which will be assessed with the help of both the formative and summative assessment. Here, in this case study, the author has divided the discussion in five parts. In the beginning, an overview upon the learners, the learning instruments and the context has been provided. Then, the author has discussed the assessment plan with the specification of the learning outcome and the assessment tools. Next the author has provided a detailed justification of his or her choice of those assessment instruments under the light of validity, reliability, holism and many more research and educational benchmarks. Finally he or she has concluded the case study with the summery of the assessment plan with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of it. Overview of the learners, learning element and context: Here, in the selected context, the learners are the clerical staffs from ABC company. The learners are working for the ABC Company since 2 months. The total number of the learners is 20. Most of the learners are apt in using the MS excel; hence, they do not have much difficulty in operating the Microsoft applications. However, in the context of MS word, the employees are facing some issues. The learners have the educational qualification of bachelors degree. However, they vary in subjects. Hence, the instructor can opt for a general learning module for all the learners without any customization. However, the ability of the learners i.e. their educational background can be identified as strength of grabbing the training and the positive result from the training can be expected. According to the educational experts, in the context of learning and teaching, the learners play a significant role (Smith, 2010). The ability, interest, attitude, emotions etc. among the learners are important for obtaining success in the process of training and learning (McCurry, 1992). Here, the company has asked for the prior permission from the employees which was preceded by a session about the importance of the training and its implication upon the prospective learners. Thus, the company has ensured the interest of the learners for this training session. On the other hand, for ensuring a positive attitude to the training, the management has declared a policy of reward for the best performer in the clerical department. As mentioned by Boud and Falchikov (2006), obtaining a positive attitude among the learners is necessary for the successful attainment of the learning objectives. Hence, alluring the employee for the betterment of their performance can direct the training session experience a substantive success (Smith, 2000). Hence, it can be expected that the learners are ready to grab the lesions successfully. The learning element: The principal elements that make the training or learning possible and achievable are the learners, the trainers or teachers and conducive learning environment (Dann, 2014). The trainers are the prime mover of the training or learning wheel whereas, the learners are the major participant or consumer of the process. On the other hand, as opined by O'Neil (2014), a favourable or conducive environment for training is the place where the training and learning activities can take place in the most efficient and productive manner. The favourable environment consists of the classroom, required furniture, a noise free surrounding, a cooperative and sharing culture and many more. The trainers or the educators need to be someone who has the qualities like open mindedness, impartiality, professionalism, patience, enthusiasm and commitment (Levy, Loy Zatz, 2014). With the personal and professional qualities, the trainers help in the successful attainment of the learning objectives of a training session. Here, the company is going to hire a professional computer trainer for this training session. To ensure, the above stated qualities the management will opt for an interview of the trainer. Moreover, to assist the trainer and the participants, the management will recruit an experienced worker from the company itself. He or she will serve as a guide to the employees in case of any difficulty in the training session. According to the educational experts, the learning environment that may include the class room, the furniture, the physical condition of the space etc. needs to be conducive to learning (Englander et al., 2015). Here, in the context of learning, the management has arranged a hall for the training session, which is situated in a noise free area at the company complex. This hall is well lit with the availability of natural light and electric lighting arrangement. Moreover, the room has the facility of AC and the doors are the sliding ones. Moreover, being situated in a quiet area, fresh air is available. On the other hand, the company has arranged for separate sitting arrangement for the participants and the trainers coupled with separate computers. The learners will sit in a circular pattern, as the trainers will opt for an interactive and physical instruction based learning session. There is an arrangement of a whiteboard and markers. Moreover, a projector will also be there, as it is going to be technological education training. The Unites Description The Learners Number: 20 Educational Background: Bachelors General level of expertise: Basic The Trainers Number: 2 Qualification: Professional training experience of at least 2 years for the Trainer, Working experience on MS Word for at least 5 years (for the guide) Environment The Room: The Training hall of the company Furniture: chairs and tables, a wardrobe Tools: laptops, pens, notebooks, whiteboard, markers, projector Figure 1: Overview of the learners, learning element (Source: Created by the author) The ABC Company has recently started its operation. The company has the staff strength of three hundred. Now, for completing the operational tasks, the company has recruited a staff base of clerks which consists of 25 members. However, the management has identified that this section is facing some issues in working with MS word. It is decreasing the operational efficiency of the organization by increasing the time taken by the employees for a certain task. On the other hand, the lack of competency in this particular field is decreasing the confidence level of the employees, which is directing the company to face a significant level of employee turnover rate. As opined by Gurinovi? et al. (2015), upholding the confidence level of the employees is crucial for the companies to ensure employee retention. The expectancy theory of motivation states that, the companies need to provide expected level of training for the development of the skill set of the employees (Broemmel, Jordan Whitset t, 2015). Trainings are needed to the employees for sharpening their capability for performing a certain task. The idea of training thus provides a reciprocal benefit. The professional development trainings help the employees in acquiring a new level of skill set or increase the existing knowledge base of the employees (Falchikov, 2013). Thus, the professional trainings help in building confidence among the employees to perform a certain responsibility. This confidence serves a sense of satisfaction among them. On the other hand, this satisfaction among the employees helps the company to retain the talent with them and the increased level of proficiency increases their productivity and decreases the operational cost by lessening the time taken and the level of resources used for performing a certain task (Tomlinson Moon, 2013). Hence, the ABC Company has taken the strategy of providing professional training to the employees for increasing their production, decreasing operational cost and retaining the talents within the organization. The assessment plan: According to the education experts, a complete and effective assessment plan includes a learning outcome for the learners, identification of the assessment tools, criteria for success and a policy of continuous improvement (Randel et al., 2016). Here, in the training context of the ABC Company, the company is going to attend a 10 days training session. The training coordinators (the trainers) will opt for achieving the following learning outcome or objectives: Making the employees proficient in using MS word. Building confidence among them on the usage of the MS word. The documentation within the organization will be developed. The learners will be able to secure the company data. The learning instruments: In the 10 days training, the learners will experience, both the formative and summative assessment. The formative assessment helps the trainers to reshape the course by collecting data about the learning status of the learners (Bevitt, 2015). Being observed in the middle of the course, it gives a chance to identify how the learners are learning and what are the issues needed to be addressed for providing a better learning experience. On the other hand, a summative assessment is done at the end of the training course. A summative assessment is made with the objectives of providing a final look at how the training session went. The result of the summative assessment is likely to provide an idea about the success of the training session (Dann, 2014). The summative assessment is made with a set grading pattern to determine whether the students pass or have attained the necessary skill sets for fulfilling the learning objectives. As mentioned by Wanner and Palmer (2015), grading or setting the marking rubrics is important to push the learners for concentrating upon the training sessions. Experience and research has shown that most of the learners are likely to get engaged in the learning session with the help of some extrinsic motivators. Hence, this training session will also opt for setting a grading criterion. As mentioned by Kovalev and Kovalev (2013), in the professional sector, selection of the assessment tool needs to be in accordance to the learners self imagery. This particular training session has identified the development of employee confidence as one of its learning outcome; hence, the assessment instruments will include some subjective and self rating questions. Here, the author has chosen the tools like questionnaire and interview. The trainers will opt for an interview session in the 5th day of the training. The trainers will use this assessment tool as a formative assessment. With the result of this interview, the trainers will reshape their training modules, if necessary. In the case of the assessment with the help of the questionnaire, the trainer will conduct it on the last day of the session. Rationalizing the assessment plan Every assessment plan should be rationalized in order to make it valid, reliable and relevant and flexible (Kuldna, Peterson Kuhi-Thalfeldt, 2015). The particular plan has been constructed to make the employees of ABC Company more efficient in their respective work. Through the principles of assessment, the plan can be evaluated to find the rationality of it. The first principle of assessment states that the assessment plan needs to be consistent and reliable. The assessment can only be called as a reliable one, when all the assessors act independently and use the similar criteria and marking scheme and make a fair judgment (Ma Rapp, 2016). The assessors should work towards a shared goal of quality standard and assurance. Specific learning outcomes and a fixed assessment criterion is very much significant to achieve the reliability in the assessment plan (Judd, Backhaus Goodsir, 2015). These categories should be open to the employees, which they are. The assessment criteria and the learning outcomes of the training are entirely known to all the employees of ABC Company. The employees also know when the assessment is set and which the markers of the assessment are. In this way the company has made the assessment tools reliable and trustworthy for the employees. Another principle of assessment says that the assessment needs to valid, which is as important the reliability and the explicitness of the assessment (Matthews, 2015). This principle triggers the idea of how much the task is applicable to assess the required skills. There may be times when the employees question the validity of the assessment. This assessment ensures that it triggers all the validity criteria and is transparent enough to fulfill the requirements for the training session. If the relevance of the assessment is triggered, it has been ensured that the assessment has enough transferability and significance. The learning outcomes of training will be fulfilled if the skills are transferable and the context of the training and assessment are similar to each other. In many cases, the assessments are made on the basis of a narrow range of jobs, therefore it tends to grow narrow array of skills as well. For these reasons the assessment of the ABC Company has made the assessment fairly enough so that it addresses all the skills that the company wants to develop in its employees. Justification of the worth of your particular assessment plan and instruments: 968 As opined by Englander et al. (2015), in the context of data collection or assessment, the chosen instrument of assessment needs to be valid, reliable and cohesive. Assessment tools are dedicated to identify the success level of the education or the training procedure. Hence, identification of the reliability and validity of the assessment method is crucial to explore the true result of the training or the educational endeavour. Here, the company is expecting to increase the proficiency level of the clerical employees and investing on the professional training sessions. Hence, it is important to select the appropriate assessment instruments which are capable enough to identify the level of attainment of the learning outcome by the training session. Measuring the validity of the assessment tools: Validity in the assessment relates to the extent at which the assessment tool is collecting right information that needs to be measured. In simpler terms validity can be designated as the quality of an assessment tool to measure what it intends to measure (Gurinovi? et al. 2015). As described by Falchikov (2013), in the context of training sessions, face validity needs to be measured. Both the assessment tools have the objectives of indentifying the subjective success of the training session. As the learning outcomes set by the trainers involve the objective of improving the learners confidence, it is important to judge the level of confidence they have attained. Both the questionnaires and the interviews will opt for the questions which will ask the employees their subjective experience. For ensuring validity of the assessment tool, it needs to ensure the construct validity. As mentioned by Dann (2014), this validity relates to the suitability of the assessment tool to measure the phenomena. By involving the panel of experts closely familiar with the measure and the phenomenon, the validity of the tool and the result can be ensured (Wanner Palmer, 2015). Here, by involving the trainer who has the experience and expertise in the professional training deliverance in the computer education, the assessment tools and the collected result can be identified as valid. Thus, the selected assessment tools can be identified as valid, as they are successfully attending the criteria of face validity and construct validity. Measuring the reliability of the assessment tools: On the other hand, reliability of the assessment method is the quality of the tool to measure each facts it is attempting to measure reliably for the given population. A specific measure can be considered to be reliable if its application on the same object of measurement number of times produces the same outcomes (Gronlund Waugh, 2009). In simpler terms, reliability of assessment is the degree to which it produces stable and reliable result. The test-retest reliability: the reliability of the result or the identified status of a phenomenon can be designated as reliable when it is obtained with conducting the test more than one time over the period of time (Willis, 1993). The test-retest reliability is generally used in the research sector. However, in this particular assessment plan, involving a two set of assessment instatement over a period of time will provide a reliable result. However, with the identification of the assessment result in the first series may not produce the same result in the nest, but it will create a reliable result which will supportive in attending the learning outcome. On the other hand, parallel forms reliability can be identified as one of the majorly discussed techniques of reliability assurance. The parallel reliability refers to the measure that is obtained by conducting two different kinds of assessment methods over a single phenomenon (Ross et al., 2016). Here, the trainer will assess the level of learning of the participants with the help of two different assessment methods. Thus, the reliability of this method can be justified. Measuring the holism of the assessment tools: A holistic approach of assessment involve the identification or involvement of the peers, or superiors, the learning units like self reflection, method of communication; optimism or trust and interest or emotional stance (Wanner Palmer, 2015). The educational experts support the utilization of the holistic assessment approach to create an effective learning outcome. With the idea of ensuring holism, the assessment has involved the strategy of interactive session in the interview. With an unstructured interview, the instructors will also be involved within the process. Thus, the major criteria of holism in assessment i.e. involvement of the stakeholders will be addressed. On the other hand, the subjective approaches of the assessment tools are able to address the remaining criteria mentioned in the above discussion. Measuring accommodation of the assessment tools: According to Chen et al. (2014), the accommodation is the assessment criteria is necessary to be measured as the primary goal of assessment is to improve the skills and potential of the concerned population. The assessment criteria determine the specific objectives and principles that are applicable to the students. It can be said that, the assessment accommodation is the alternation of the way the test is administered. The accommodations of an assessment may be categorized into six types, presentation, response, setting, scheduling, timing and others (Pettit, Croxton Fiksel, 2013). The other category refers to the accommodations which a student or an employee might need and that cannot be fitted into the other five categories. The assessment accommodation is necessary to be provided due to the needs of the students. However, there are no globally approved assessment accommodations, although most of the people agree to the previously provided categories. The policies of accommodatio n tend to vary enormously. It is possible to find one accommodation, which is not allowed in one situation yet outlawed in another one (Sainaghi, Phillips Corti, 2013). The decisions management takes on the assessment accommodation, should be defined on the basis of the employee requirements and to provide equal opportunity for everyone. It is important to note that accommodation does not compromise with the subject of test measurement. This triggers the concept of ensuring that the decision makers have a clear perspective of the purpose of the assessment and the necessary skills that the assessment is trying to evaluate. Cohesiveness of the assessment plan The success of any assessment plan depends on its cohesiveness. As a team develops because of its cohesiveness, it is also important for the assessment plan to be cohesive enough to be successful (Shaw et al., 2014). The interview and the test need to be strategic in order to achieve cohesiveness. If the assessment plan is not enough strategic, it will lead to an unstructured one and will not fulfil the purpose of the assessment plan. Conclusion: In conclusion, it can be said that the company is following a fair and justified assessment plan to judge their employees after the training session. The primary objective of the assessment is considered to be the fulfillment of the learning outcomes. 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