RPL assessment

1
RPL assessment

• RPL basics

2
Introducing

• Importance of RPL
• RPL in todays work environment
• Approaching RPL
• Good assessment practice
• Professional judgement
• RPL risk considerations
• Decision making roles

3
Importance of RPL

• Maximise opportunity nationally recognised
  qualifications and/or competencies
• Formally recognise skills and knowledge
• Improve morale and develop new skills
• Build confidence and self-esteem
• Improve performance, productivity and
  profitability 
• Retain staff and ensure succession planning

4
RPL in todays work environment

• Focus on generating evidence
• Validation and development pathway
• Supportive assessors
• Assessment of a whole job role
• RPL assessment links from the workplace back to
  the qualification
• Systems and tools in place to support all
  stakeholders

5
Approaching RPL

• Be very familiar with the job /industry
• Identify risk areas of job, competency or
  qualification
• Have a range of supportive assessment methods and
  evidence gathering tools planned or organised to
  assess individual or industry competence
• Cluster units of competency Unpack the
  learners history and current context of job role
  or tasks as well as the Training Package

6
Good assessment practice

• Principles of assessment
• Validity
• Reliability
• Flexibility
• Fairness

7
Rules of evidence

• Is the evidence
• valid
• authentic
• current
• sufficient / consistent?

8
RPL evidence collection

• A range of evidence collection techniques
• Consideration given to the candidates context,
  job role, experience
• Evidence examples given to candidate
• Assessment tools flexible to accommodate
  different candidate contexts

9
RPL assessment plan

• Starts with the first competency conversation
  with the candidate
• Similar to planning a trip
• What, when, how, where, why
• Identify the RPL process and the candidates
  context
• Negotiate and confirm with the candidate the
  types of evidence and how it will be collected
• Support candidate and be flexible

10
Professional judgement

• Making a judgement based on assessors expertise
  
• expert knowledge in the field
• deep understanding of underlying principles
• accumulated experience in the practice of the
  profession
• familiarity with recent advances in the
  professional knowledge base,
• Mastery of the best available techniques and
  tools
• (cited in Professional judgement and assessment
  A think piece by Andrea Bateman Masters 2003)

11
Weigh up the risk
12
RPL and risk considerations

• Job role
• Frequency and impact
• Industrial environment
• Competency
• Degree of skills recognition
• Types of evidence
• Available resources
• Mode of decision making

13
Mode of decision making
Professional judgment

• Smiths quadrants
• L Smith (2004), cited B Knight (2006)
  usingAssessment for recognition of prior
  learning in technical and vocational education
  and training in Australia where to from here?
  NCVER

Holistic Assessment
Assessment of elements
Performance criteria
14
Mitigating risk

• Considerations
• Use the most appropriate decision making mode
  possibly a mixed-quadrant approach
• Use a range of evidence types one size does not
  fit all
• Use experienced, confident RPL assessors
• Consider different stages of RPL process
  professional conversation to skill demonstration
• Check evidence by a second, independent assessor
• Validate

15
Recap

• Take the time to set up flexible and fair RPL
  processes, using approaches which consider the
  candidates, employers, industrys context and
  need.
• Assessor experience, skills and knowledge are
  critical to more integrated RPL assessment using
  principles, professional judgement, risk
  management and decision making processes.

16
RPL actions

• Identify 3 priority actions that will streamline
  and improve RPL practices and outcomes for your
  organisation, staff and / or industry partners.

17
Resources

• RPL assessmentMapping job roles to
  competenciespresentation in this series, DFEEST
  / COAG Program, 2009
• RPL types of evidence examples, handout, DFEEST /
  COAG Program, 2009
• Other resources and references available at
• www.training.sa.gov.au
• (Links and Resources)

18
Thank you

• Andover to you!