Quality training and assessment resources from CAQA Resources

While operating as a registered training organisation, you will be required to make a range of decisions, with obtaining high-quality training and assessment resources being among the most significant.

To ensure that your students receive the learning experience necessary to function competently in their chosen vocation, you need to invest in quality assessment and learner resources. It is only through the use of high-quality training staff as well as good training and assessment materials that a Registered Training Organisation can achieve this.

The quality of education and training that you deliver may suffer if you employ individuals who are not experts in their profession, accordingly, not having compliant assessment and learner resources means the quality of training you offer or promise will also suffer. You must spend time reviewing the quality of your assessment and learner resources against the following criteria:

Investing in high-quality training materials is therefore vital for the survival and eventual success of a training organisation. When you provide quality, it will have a significant impact on the reputation of the RTO, its legal requirements, and the quality of the outcomes. According to ASQA audit analysis published in 2017, over 80% of RTOs failed to comply with Standard One during the audit process and one of the major non-compliance has been the quality of assessment and learner resources.

Consider the following two scenarios:

Scenario 1

You are an industry leader and well-known in the RTO sector for what you know and what you do, but if your training and assessment resources are non-compliant, or worse, if a regulatory body audits you and determines that this is the case and makes decisions based on the findings, your training organisation’s reputation will be questioned. The regulatory body has suggested that students be reassessed for a period of 12 or 24 months in a number of instances. As a result, if you lack compliant training and assessment resources or do not adhere to compliant regulatory practices, you may experience significant challenges.

Scenario 2

Your RTO is unable to contextualise and customise or even worse know the requirements set around the assessment and learner resources because you assume that simply purchasing them from a resource provider qualifies you as compliant. Without acknowledging and comprehending reality, there are a number of resource providers that sell substandard quality resources, and if you purchase these materials, you may risk losing your RTO registration.

The question arises as to what to do when evaluating assessment and learner materials? How can you determine their quality? How can you make informed decisions and avoid wasting your hard-earned money?

This advice may help:

1. Maintain current knowledge and skills in compliance with legislative and regulatory standards.

You must spend time updating your knowledge and skills in relation to legislative and regulatory requirements. This includes contacting industry leaders who know what is compliant and what is non-compliant, attending professional development sessions, subscribing to and attending all regulatory body-sponsored webinars and conferences, subscribing to and reading VET and RTO newsletters, and also asking external auditors to conduct audits on your training and assessment systems on regular intervals.

2. Begin with a compliant copy of the learner and assessment resources that will serve as the foundation for the entire unit of competency:

Some publishers and developers are prone to displaying only a small number of their best samples and claiming that these samples reflect all of their qualifications. This is both incredibly distracting and misleading for the buyer who will assume that all material will be of the same quality. In order to avoid making such a mistake, you should request a complete sample, even if the sample is provided through an online platform to safeguard the copyright.

3. Ensure that all your assessment and learner resources have been pre-validated.

Poor quality of assessment tools is a contributing factor in the majority of RTO non-compliance problems. As an RTO resource provider, we receive a steady stream of calls from RTOs who have already spent money on substandard materials only to realise that fixing them will cost more than buying new resources. You can avoid this by following the steps below:

a. Pre-validate before use: By rigorously and thoroughly validating your new resources before putting them to use, you effectively protect your RTO. Fixing non-compliant resources is an expensive and time-consuming exercise that takes a long time to complete.

c. Make sure that all action verbs and action words are covered in the training package when you are pre-validating. For example, if the performance criteria is “consult with stakeholders,” a plural form is used, which means consultation with more than one stakeholder is required. Consult is a verb that means to seek advice or information from someone i.e. involves open-ended questions and communication.

d. Everything is addressed at least twice if it is not clearly stated in the training package that once is sufficient.

e. It is a must to assess performance criteria, foundation skills, and performance evidence using practical, workplace-based, or scenario-based methods and strategies.

f. Check the footer and header of the documents to ensure that all version control, unit name and code, and other pertinent information is accurate and up to date.

g. All equipment, resources, and materials specified in the assessment conditions must be made available in order for the assessment to take place.

4. Verify that mapping documentation for the assessment tools and learner resources are available.

The mapping materials associated with the assessment tools and learner resources should be available. Check this before you purchase the training and assessment resources. Ensure that the training and assessment resources have met all of the unit requirements.

5. Verify that the correct assessment method has been used.

Many assessment instruments use non-compliant techniques for determining learner competency. If the assessment assignment asks a student, “How would you do this?” or something along these lines, you must be extremely cautious, especially if there is a mapping to performance criteria (PCs) or performance evidence (PEs), as such a question has no wrong answer. The student may provide an answer that shows incorrect understanding, but because the question is not asking for the correct way of doing something, there is no wrong answer.

In order to establish competency in performing a task or job, evidence must be provided in the form of an observation that properly identifies the specific performance level for each practical skill performed. Many observation checklists are simply copied and pasted versions of PEs and PCs from the unit, found on the national register. It has the potential to cause complications during an audit and result in non-compliance.

6. Determine whether there are sufficient learner resources to meet the training requirements.

Choose among those learning resources that will allow you to demonstrate that you have satisfied the learning criteria for the delivery of the qualification. ASQA will audit your RTO to establish whether or not there are sufficient training and assessment resources for the students to be able to implement the theory learnt into practice in the workplace.

The training resources you choose are important as they can determine whether or not you will be able to demonstrate compliance during an audit. One suggestion that you might find really useful is to review the content and ensure it meets the compliance requirements. For example, when you look at materials you may find that they have double spacing between lines and a large number of photos. The material of these types of resources is typically lacking in depth. You will also observe that the use of this type of formatting will result in a two-fold increase in the number of pages. Some publishers employ this technique to give the appearance that their content is more extensive than it actually is. Therefore, look at each of the performance criteria and make an informed judgement if the information is adequately covered or not.

7. Check to determine if the information is accurate, up to date, and thorough.

Finally, but certainly not least, you should check the clarity of the content you are considering purchasing. One method of obtaining legitimate, reliable, and up-to-date training materials is to select learning resource publishers and developers who appoint subject matter experts in order to obtain the proper and comprehensive material. Assessment activities, session plans, assessment workbooks, and learning guides, among other instructional methods, should be included in the training material to ensure that students receive sufficient learning material.

Student assessment workbooks should be a comprehensive collection of assessment assignments used to gain an understanding of a student’s level of knowledge.

Trainer/Assessor evaluation resources are items that are intended for use by trainers in the assessment process.

Trainers employ a variety of assessment tools, such as benchmark answers and assessor instructions, to gather the information that is necessary for providing training.

Self-study guides are available to students to assist them in developing an enthusiastic approach to learning.

Mapping documents, learner manuals, and PowerPoint presentations should be included in the training tools to help make the training complete and user-friendly.

8. The resources are plagiarism-free

Use applications such as Grammarly and/or Turnitin to confirm that the resources are free of copyright and plagiarism issues before using them. If it is general information that is freely available on the internet, you should not be concerned; but, if it is information from a different publisher or from copyrighted websites or other materials, you should be concerned and should refrain from using these products.

CAQA Resources

CAQA Resources delivers high-quality solutions in the form of compliant RTO resources that are comprehensive and totally adaptable to meet your specific requirements as well as the needs and requirements of students.

When it comes to learning and assessment for your learners, CAQA Resources is your go-to for staying compliant. Our RTO resources, training and learning materials, assessment tools, as well as learning kits, provide a comprehensive selection of resources for a wide range of qualifications.

Visit our website www.caqaresources.com.au and look through our comprehensive list.

Contact us on 1800 266 160 or email info@caqa.com.au for more information on how to obtain the best training resources for your RTO.

Training Packages: CAQA Resources can deliver resources from the following training packages:

List of all training packages CAQA Resources have available or are currently writing:

  • AHC – Agriculture, Horticulture and Conservation and Land Management Training Package
  • AUR – Automotive Retail, Service and Repair Training Package
  • BSB – Business Services Training Package
  • CHC – Community Services Training Package
  • CPC – Construction, Plumbing and Services Training Package
  • CUA – Creative Arts and Culture Training Package
  • EAL – English as an Additional Language Training Package
  • FBP – Food, Beverage and Pharmaceutical Training Package
  • FNS – Financial Services Training Package
  • FSK – Foundation Skills Training Package
  • FWP – Forest and Wood Products Training Package
  • HLT – Health Training Package
  • ICP – Printing and Graphic Arts Training Package
  • ICT – Information and Communications Technology Training Package
  • MEM – Manufacturing and Engineering Training Package
  • MSF – Furnishing Training Package
  • MSM – Manufacturing Training Package
  • MSS – Sustainability Training Package
  • NUR – Nursing Training Package
  • PMA – Chemical, Hydrocarbons and Refining Training Package
  • PSP – Public Sector Training Package
  • RII – Resources and Infrastructure Industry Training Package
  • SHB – Hairdressing and Beauty Services Training Package
  • SIR – Retail Services Training Package
  • SIS – Sport, Fitness and Recreation Training Package
  • SIT – Tourism, Travel and Hospitality Training Package
  • TAE – Training and Education Training Package
September 19, 2021 CAQA Resources, RTO, Training and Assessment Comments Off on Quality training and assessment resources from CAQA Resources

How to transition from classroom to online or distance training and assessment

Moving from face-to-face training and assessment to online or distance learning and assessment can be difficult, especially when you have already invested in facilities, equipment, and resources for face-to-face training and assessment.

However, in order to survive and also to embrace new technologies, many training organisations have decided to move to an online or distance learning and assessment mode. Here are some views and suggestions on how you can accomplish this in a competent and compliant manner at this point in time.

Whatever method you use to offer instruction to students, you must plan, document, and implement techniques that ensure that students obtain all necessary skills and knowledge in the subject matter. This need includes ensuring that students have access to appropriate resources, facilities, and trainers.

Transitioning from one delivery mode to another

Training and assessment strategy

Training and assessment strategies are not a single document but rather a collection of documents that serve as a road map for your organisation’s delivery of training and assessment to a specific learner cohort.

As a result, this is the first document that needs to be updated whenever there is a change in delivery mode (such as switching from classroom mode to distance or online mode), client cohort (whether experienced and working in the industry or not experienced and not working), or any other changes to the way you deliver and conduct your training and assessment practices.

Several aspects of your training and assessment strategy, including but not limited to the following should be considered:

  • Delivery mode
  • Training and assessment arrangements (e.g, Your own lms or using someone else’s)
  • Admissions requirements, skill, knowledge, employment, and pre-enrollment assessment sections, how you will assess the technical skills and competencies of the learners to enrol in the course
  • Course duration in terms and training delivery and assessment, and how these will be conducted
  • The details related to the delivery of the course
  • Academic and student support, how much and when they will be provided
  • Facilities and resources you need to operate the online or distance mode of delivery
  • Policies and procedures to safeguard data and information and also comply with privacy legislation and other regulations applicable
  • The contextualisation and customisation of your training and assessment resources
  • How the work placement component will be conducted?
  • How your assessors will assess the student’s work?
  • Training and evaluation hours required by the students for each activity online or in the distance delivery method
  • How trainers and assessors will ensure that the students are ready for evaluation
  • How trainers and assessors will ensure that the students are prepared for the assessment. When should the assessment take place?

Training and assessment strategies should be agreed to by all parties involved in the training and assessment process after they have been prepared, but they should also be evaluated by representatives from the industry.

All stakeholders should agree on the strategy.

When it comes to offering and providing support to students, following policies and procedures, and proving compliance through all of their actions, one of the most difficult tasks is ensuring that all of your stakeholders are on the same page.

Changes in other documents

You have recognised the changes and how you intend to address them. The next stage is to check all documents and practices, such as the timetable, session plan, training and assessment resources, all templates, your procedures, etc. to ensure your practices reflect what you have stated in your training and assessment strategy.

Marketing materials

Your marketing materials should be updated to include clear information about what learners may expect from participating in learning and assessment activities with your organisation.

Demonstrate compliance through evidence

When it comes to demonstrating compliance, the regulatory body is clear in its requirements. If you do not have evidence to support your claims, then you are not doing what you are claiming.

Ensure you have evidence of everything that is indicated in your policy framework, training and assessment strategies, any other organisational documentation, as well as the needs of any legislative or regulatory guidelines or standards that apply.

For example, a review form that details who developed the training and assessment strategy, who reviewed it from internal and external stakeholders, what feedback was provided, how feedback is included, and when each of these activities took place could be one of the most important pieces of evidence.

Call us on 1800 266 160 or email info@caqa.com.au to find out more on how we can assist.

September 3, 2021 News, Training and Assessment Comments Off on How to transition from classroom to online or distance training and assessment

According to a new report, businesses are increasing their investments in cybersecurity skills

According to new research from cybersecurity firm Sophos, internal IT departments and businesses are making investments in their staff’ cybersecurity skills and knowledge.

According to a new analysis from Sophos, IT teams around the world faced unprecedented challenges in 2020 and 2021, with cybersecurity issues ranking at the top of the list – if not at the top – of the list. As a result, businesses are increasing their investments in cybersecurity, training the staff members, checking their knowledge and skills to protect organisations and themselves from cyber attacks and making reasonable efforts to safeguard the organisation from any cyber threats.

The cybersecurity behemoth interviewed 5,400 IT managers across 30 countries and discovered that workloads for internal IT Teams are increasing as cyberattacks become more advanced, prompting IT professionals to improve their cybersecurity expertise and hire more in-house security personnel. This is the reason why Australia is continuously focussing on improving and enhancing the cybersecurity skills of its skilled labour.

According to the survey, non-security workloads increased in every industry, with 63 per cent of IT managers across all industries reporting an increase in non-security workloads. The most significant increases in workload were observed in Turkey (84 per cent), Australia (81 per cent), and the United States (75 per cent), with IT teams in government and education being the most adversely affected.

However, 69 per cent of respondents stated that their cybersecurity responsibilities have increased even further, with over 70 per cent of managers in business and professional services, government, construction, education, utilities, manufacturing, and retail stating the same.

Given the sophistication of modern cybercrime, a slim majority (54 per cent) of IT managers surveyed indicated they are having difficulty responding to cyberattacks on their own. Businesses, governments, and the healthcare industry all claimed they require outside assistance to handle cybercrime responses.

IT professionals in Australia say they require the most assistance, with 86 per cent stating that assaults are too advanced for internal IT to handle. In contrast, 54 per cent of respondents in the United States agreed.

According to the survey, these difficulties are contributing to longer reaction times, with 61 per cent of IT managers reporting that their response times to IT problems are increasing, while 19 per cent reported that their response times are either remaining the same or decreasing.

Increasing their cybersecurity knowledge and skills, perhaps out of necessity, is something that IT professionals are doing, with 70 per cent claiming to have been successful in doing so.

The events of the last year and a half have also compelled organisations to increase their investment in their cybersecurity workforce, with 68 per cent of IT managers expecting to increase their in-house security teams over the next two years and 76 per cent expecting to do the same over the next five years as a result of the recent events.

Meanwhile, 56 per cent of respondents anticipate an increase in outsourced IT employees over the next two years, and 64 per cent anticipate an increase over the following five years.

The survey also revealed that firms that were negatively impacted by cybersecurity actually experienced an increase in morale. Overall, 52 per cent of respondents indicated an improvement in IT team morale, but when IT experts whose business had been struck by ransomware were polled, 60 per cent reported an increase in morale in their firm. Ransomware did not have a negative impact on morale in 47 per cent of the firms that were not affected.

It was noted that “adversity – in this case, cyberattacks – frequently creates an opportunity for people to join together and work collaboratively towards a common objective, which helps to increase morale.” The ability to sustain the organisation while dealing with growing attacks provides a sense of satisfaction, as well.

A range of VET resources, RPL kits, LLN kits, training and assessment resources, and e-learning resources in cybersecurity have been developed by CAQA Resources for use by any interested training organisation. You can visit our website www.caqaresources.com.au for more information related to our training and assessment materials or email us at info@caqa.com.au.

August 22, 2021 CAQA Resources, Training and Assessment Comments Off on According to a new report, businesses are increasing their investments in cybersecurity skills

Writing your Training and Assessment Strategy – Part 2 of Part 5

To refresh yourself, please find Part 1 here

In our part 1, we had the opportunity to cover a number of topics relevant to writing a compliant and useful training and assessment strategy. Topics covered included:

  • What is the definition of training and assessment strategy?
  • Why is it known as a high-level view of a course/ training program or a “Helicopter—document”?
  • What are the other terms we use for training and assessment strategies?
  • What should we call our document according to regulatory requirements and guidelines?
  • What information must be included in a training and assessment strategy?
  • How a training and assessment strategy should be saved?
  • How auditors use the training and assessment strategy?
  • Why do we need a fit for purpose training assessment strategy?
  • What a training organisation must consider when designing a training and assessment strategy?

In this part of the series, we will cover the following main points:

  • Can a training and assessment strategy be used for different learner cohorts?
  • What are the different learner cohorts?

Can a training and assessment strategy be used for different learner cohorts?

A simple answer to this question is “no”. The regulatory requirements require the training provider to ensure they have employed suitable and effective training and assessment practices after evaluating and assessing the needs of each of their learner. You can certainly categorise the learners, according to their preferences, needs and requirements into separate learner cohort but then you must design a learning and assessment strategy for each of your learner cohort.

You can offer learners a learning experience that is unique to the cohort they belong to by categorising them into smaller groups based on category they fall into. You can separate and organise discussion topics by cohorts so that participants only communicate with people from their own group. You can design course material in such a way that different cohorts of learners receive different assessments or training materials designed and prepared to meet their individual learning and training needs and requirements.

Regulatory guidelines related to this matter are:

Standards for RTOs 2015:

Clause 1.1

The RTO’s training and assessment strategies and practices, including the amount of training they provide, are consistent with the requirements of training packages and VET accredited courses and enable each learner to meet the requirements for each unit of competency or module in which they are enrolled.

Clause 1.2

For the purposes of clause 1.1, the RTO determines the amount of training they provide to each learner with regard to:

  • the existing skills, knowledge and the experience of the learner
  • the mode of delivery
  • where a full qualification is not being delivered, the number of units and/or modules being delivered as a proportion of the full qualification.

Clause 1.3

The RTO has, for all of its scope of registration, and consistent with its training and assessment strategies, sufficient:

  • trainers and assessors to deliver the training and assessment
  • educational and support services to meet the needs of the learner cohort/s undertaking the training and assessment
  • learning resources to enable learners to meet the requirements for each unit of competency, and which are accessible to the learner regardless of location or mode of delivery
  • facilities, whether physical or virtual, and equipment to accommodate and support the number of learners undertaking the training and assessment.

Clause 1.4

The RTO meets all requirements specified in the relevant training package or VET accredited course.

Clause 2.2

The RTO:

  • systematically monitors the RTO’s training and assessment strategies and practices to ensure ongoing compliance with Standard 1
  • systematically evaluates and uses the outcomes of the evaluations to continually improve the RTO’s training and assessment strategies and practices. Evaluation information includes but is not limited to quality/performance indicator data collected under clause 7.5, validation outcomes, client trainer and assessor feedback and complaints and appeals.

Let us understand this concept using some practical real-life examples.

Example 1:

The training organisation has the opportunity to offer training through different training delivery modes such as online, workplace, distance, classroom or blended (combination of two or more delivery modes). However, as the training organisation will not be able to use the same strategies, resources, equipment, and materials for all the different delivery modes. The same condition applies to the training and assessment strategies as well. Online learners might need access to learning management system, discussion forums, interactive training sessions, online meetings and so on when traditional classroom learners may need face to face, live interactions with trainers and assessors, set time and set location for training and learning activities, physical distancing, different set of equipment and training materials. Therefore, you will not be able to design a single strategy that can meet the requirements of these completely different kinds of learner cohorts.

Example 2:

Another example is for learners who may or may not require prerequisite learning and assessment criteria before enrolling into a course. There are several courses where students are required to have adequate and sufficient knowledge, skills and understanding to enrol into the course. Without meeting these fundamental enrolment and admission requirements, that can be set by the training product, a regulatory body, at state or federal level or by the training organisation, the learners should not be able to enrol, study and complete a course. You will therefore require two separate set of training programs, one for learner cohort who can commence training after demonstrating they meet the admission and enrolment criteria and another one for learners who must complete the prerequisites before enrolling into a course. This example also includes learners who need to improve their English proficiency skills before they can enrol to complete a training program, completing a training course before enrolling into a pathway program, completing a hand—on employment training program or work—experience for a certain time period and so on.

Note: Some of these requirements can be co-requisite (must be studied at the same time of completing other components of the training and assessment) and others are pre—requisite (must be successfully completed before enrolling into the training program).

Example 3:

We discussed this example in part 1 as well but thought to include again to ensure the readers understand why we need to develop separate training and assessment strategies to meet the needs of the different learner cohorts.

For example, a TAS initially developed to deliver training to mature students with substantial industry experience with a shorter delivery time frame and assessment methods which utilise the candidates prior experience- or application to the workplace.  If the RTO’s new learner cohort has little to no experience, the TAS will not be fit for purpose.

There is also no “single size” template for a TAS. All variations must be correctly recorded through a customised or new training and assessment strategy.

What are the different learner cohorts?

The learner cohorts can also be based on a number of other factors such as:

  • Location where training and assessment will be delivered, is it online, classroom, workplace, blended etc.
  • The facilities, equipment, materials, support services and resources required to deliver the training.
  • Skill gaps identified in the learner cohorts or expected pre-requisite knowledge, skills and work experience required to enrol and complete the course
  • The course duration and timings and arrangements to cater these needs.
  • Course entry and exit requirements
  • English language proficiency requirements
  • Support needs and requirements of each learner
  • Disability, demographics, degree, dialect, difference
  • Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, first in family to attend university, non-English speaking background.
  • Multicultural, mind-set, motivation, morals
  • Employment status of the learners
  • Reason for enrolling into the course
  • Relevant industry and work experience in the specific stream
  • Course delivery structure and sequence
  • Recognition of prior learning and recognition of current competencies
  • Duration of the training course
  • Other possible variations for learners with different learning and assessment needs and requirements

Note: This is not an exhaustive list and written for reference purposes only.

In our next editions, we will discuss:

  • What should be included in a training and assessment strategy (TAS) template
  • How to complete a training and assessment strategy (TAS) template
  • Review and manage training and assessment strategy (TAS) tool

References:

https://www.asqa.gov.au/standards/training-assessment/clauses-1.1-to-1.4-2.2

April 29, 2021 Training and Assessment Comments Off on Writing your Training and Assessment Strategy – Part 2 of Part 5
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