About forms and stuff

Materials given to students should have enough information so that they can do the tasks (i.e. provide useful evidence).

The normally recommended kind of recording form is a checklist of all the assessment tasks for that unit or qualification, so that the assessor may mark against each task as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. If they satisfactorily do all required tasks for a unit, they are given a result of competent for that unit. The form also includes space for comments, signature, and appropriate identifying information.

Language and layout of assessment tools should take into account the needs of the students, your RTO's requirements, and the principles of assessment.

The recording form might be very simple. This is more likely the case when the outcomes describe clearly what is required and clearly imply how it is to be assessed. It might contain only:

  1. Name of the RTO
  2. Name of assessor
  3. Your RTO's version control, such as date of issue or edition number. ( This will help your RTO to ensure currency: It's very frustrating to have several versions of the same document and not know which one is current.)
  4. Name of student
  5. Task or evidence assessed
  6. Result  for each task: Satisfactory or unsatisfactory
  7. Comments (For appeal purposes, this especially needs to include any deficiency in tasks not satisfactorily done. But give positive comments as well.)
  8. Name and code number of the unit(s)
  9. Result on the unit(s): Competent or not yet competent
  10. Date
  11. Assessor's signature

 

More about forms ...

Although assessment forms don’t always need every possible item of information, all the following are also possible:

It is good practice to make a detailed record of any other factors that specifically affect the assessment result. In particular, you may need other tools for portfolios, knowledge tests, etc.

The trend was that you should also keep other records as assessment instruments, but now it is a requirement. For example:

Give clear and specific instructions on the use of the instruments. If the student's instructions are full and adequate, then these could also act as instructions to the assessor. Instructions can be:

Again, it is the idea of leaving a very strong paper trail.