Vocational education can be understood as training that focuses on the knowledge and skills to be developed for a specific trade, job function, or a particular craft. Students that are not interested in joining the traditional four-year degree programs might choose vocational education to acquire the training required to become qualified professionals in different types of trade. This type of education blends the academic and the technical instructions for the preparation of graduates to enter the workforce directly. Vocational education provides students with practical alternatives to traditional post-secondary degrees. The training engages the students through contextual learning and is focused on the development of skills that are specific to a particular occupation or career area. Even though students can access vocational education through different outlets at the state and local levels, some employers might offer the programs.
The process of developing assessments for vocational education starts by examining the potential use of the information produced. The examination provides individuals with information that could be used to drive the choice of the most appropriate assessment methods. The assessment method selected should improve learning and instruction, enhance individual mastery, and evaluate the success of a particular program, all of which are relevant to vocational education (Carter, 2012). Vocational educators require assessments that can respond to particular demands within their field of specialty. For instance, proposed federal reforms of vocational education need to be accountable in one form or another. In this regard, the reforms assume that vocational educators are in a good position to produce measures of the performance of a student or program to fulfill the accountability requirement.
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Additionally, vocational assessment should be sensitive to student characteristics, especially ESL students. In this case, the teachers should understand that ESL students might find it difficult to comprehend some of the instructional information, which is a provision that might require the need to use individualized strategies that would enhance student comprehension. The same should also be applicable during the assessment process. In this case, the teacher should be aware of the needs of each particular student and tune the assessment process based on different facets of his or her comprehension and ability to communicate in English. In this case, multiple methods of assessment would be preferred, based on the idea that a student might not be able to communicate clearly using English, but his or her skills in the practical application of different concepts taught might be high.
The purpose of teacher-based assessments
Educational assessments serve different purposes, which is an indication that the type of assessment selected will depend on the way in which the information will be used. In spite of the differences in the use of information derived from student assessment, the fundamental uses include measuring student learning, certifying the mastery level of students, and providing information regarding the performance of the particular program (Carter, 2012). The identified purposes are also applicable to vocational education. In this regard, vocational teachers use the results of tests as well as other assessments to monitor student progress, diagnose the student needs, and develop appropriate instructional plans (Carter, 2012). When students complete their courses, vocational programs use the assessments for certifying that students have achieved a particular level of mastery in their respective courses. The assessments are also used to determine whether the student has met industry standards or not.
Teacher assessments can provide aggregate information regarding the progress of a student, which is used to judge the quality of vocational education. Even though it is possible to use one assessment for several purposes, the single assessment cannot be used to simultaneously identify the weakness of individual students and target instructions, including the use of the same assessment method by legislators or the public to judge the quality of the education system within a particular state (Carter, 2012). For instance, it is not possible to use standardized test results for all the identified purposes. For this reason, when a teacher is choosing the assessment tool to be used, he or she should consider the potential use of the information to be derived from the particular assessment.
Assessments are usually characterized by more than one purpose and several interested parties. Mukhtar and Ahmad (2015) indicate that the role of classroom assessments involve the improvement of students’ learning, including teachers’ teaching. The improvements are necessary for ensuring that the students achieve their individual potential, which means that it is important for teachers to understand that student assessment is integral to the teaching process. In all the educational settings, teachers are primarily responsible for measuring individual learning within different contexts such as the classroom. Teachers use information derived from this context to improve student instruction, which is a provision that enhances student learning.
For instance, when a teacher uses direct observation, including any other form of formal or informal assessment strategies, they will be in a good position to keep track of what their students learn, the instructional approaches that can work for the students, and determine the specific areas that require changes (Gargiulo & Metcalf, 2012). In this light, to assist in improvement, it is vital for assessments to provide detailed information on the specific knowledge and skills taught in class. Ideally, for instructional improvement, the information derived from the assessments should be either cumulative or on demand to determine the quality of instructional information to be provided (Gargiulo & Metcalf, 2012). Teachers are responsible for administering assessments, scoring and using them together with other information about student performance, which means that less premium should be placed on the technical quality of the education.
Teacher-based assessments can also be used for the verification of students that have mastered a given set of skills or body of knowledge. The information can be used for student selection, placement, certification, as well as promotion. When the goal of the assessment process is for mastery, the focus on verifiable information to be considered would include focusing on the student’s general abilities such as tests required for college admission or the student’s specific skills that might be required for professional licensing. The decisions considered demand the consideration of the quality of the assessment measures, which are inclusive of their validity, level of fairness in relation to student assessment, and their reliability (Custer et al., 2000). Since the decisions regarding the general abilities or specific skills have a direct bearing on the future of students, they should be based on more than one measure.
The assessment methods used can also assist in obtaining information needed for evaluating the quality of the vocational training programs, the quality of the institutions offering this type of education, and the districts responsible for providing vocational education and training. The accountability measures derived from the assessment can be based on the performance of individual students or on the performance of a specific group such as a given class or school. Because the accountability measures assist in comparing and rewarding different programs, the accountability assessments should be in a position of demonstrating a high degree of validity and reliability (Custer et al., 2000). For this reason, the vocational educators require assessments that are sensitive to the uniqueness of the vocational context. Particularly, when vocational educators face alterations in the nature of student enrollment in vocational courses, including changes in the nature of the skills they teach in the courses, it is essential for the educators to understand the changes and make appropriate assessment choices.
Concerns leading to proposals for vocational education reforms
One of the most fundamental concerns informing proposals for vocational education reform programs is economic in nature. According to Stecher, Rahn, Ruby, and Alt (1996), assessment plays a significant role in the reform proposals. Various reports have been provided to indicate that the skills high school graduates acquire upon graduation are inadequate to meet the demands of the workplace. The inadequacy reduces the competitiveness of the U.S in the international marketplace. For this reason, altering the organization and structure of vocational education would be important.
Even though various entities exhibit differences in terms of their approach to vocational training reforms, the opposing sides agree on the need to implement appropriate methods that would assist in assessing the skills vocational students possess. Of relative importance is the skills acquired that are specific to a particular line of work. The need to assess the skills reliably and validly could be in line with policymakers’ thoughts concerning the idea that it is essential to measure the degree to which students from different learning entities have mastered the skills around which the training they receive is focused (Carter, 2012). An individual could argue that the policymakers use these thoughts to determine the most appropriate policies that could be put in place for job creation.
Assessment systems are fundamental for initiating the reforms needed in vocational education. The assessment systems are designed as accountability tools as well as a lever for promoting curriculum changes, including instructions for vocational education students. Teachers could use multiple measures of achievements. These measures could include open-ended written questions, events to be performed in a group, and portfolios (Carter, 2012). Some of the other non-cognitive measures that might be applied include vocational school attendance and retention, which constitute the accountability scores of the vocational educational institutions. Significant rewards, as well as failures, are attached to these scores (Carter, 2012). However, the quality of the scores could be a factor to consider when using them to assess the appropriateness of the vocational education programs. Since independent evaluations can identify possible technical shortcomings that could threaten the validity of the scores, responses to the concerns should be accounted for as a way of improving the system.
The vocational education and training programs have undergone changes in emphasis from curriculum content to the development of student competencies and the achievement of desirable outcomes. The general agreement is that at a minimum, competency assessments should define the fundamental purpose of the assessment. For this reason, it is essential to use suitable methods for gathering evidence of student competence, which should be interpreted against the predetermined competency standards. Judgments for inferring competence should define the purpose of the assessment, including the keeping of records and reports on the outcomes of the assessments for key stakeholders (Mukhtar & Ahmad, 2015). The evidence gathered on the assessment methods applied will assist assessors in making appropriate reform judgments based on the interpretation of the collected information.
Socio-cultural understanding of teacher-based assessment
A good constituent of good pedagogy is feedback. Many researchers in the field of education agree with the idea that feedback is integral to formative assessment Gargiulo & Metcalf, 2012). For this reason, a considerable number of institutional projects focus on improving their assessment policies and practice by using feedback from the work of students. In an assessment for learning, it is vital for the learner to close the gap between his or her present state of understanding and the learning objective to be achieved. For this reason, students can improve through developing capacities that can enable them to monitor the quality of their work. The initiative will require the students to possess an appreciation of high-quality work, which is an indication that they should possess appropriate evaluative skills needed for comparisons of the objectivity of quality. In this case, students should be in a position of comparing their outcome to higher.
After a significant number of years on vocational training reform, policymakers, vocational educators, and industry stakeholders consider vocational education as a primary source of cheap labor for various industries. Successive state or local as well as federal administrations have been managing vocational education as a cost that should be reduced rather than an investment in an individual or in a social good. Anne Jones (2018) refers to an assessment made by researchers from the Mitchell Institute to indicate that public funding set aside for vocational education has been declining over the years, while funding for more influential higher learning institutions has grown significantly. However, continued training reforms by the successive state and federal administrations have intensified the focus on technical education. These developments point towards the socio-cultural understanding of vocational education as a sector that serves particular industries rather than communities should be the case. For this reason, the acceptance of vocational education in public policy should be universally accepted.
Based on the understanding that vocational education should be understood from the point that it should be universally accepted as a sector industry, there are advantages that should be recognized in terms of efficiency for determining the use of single or multiple measures in teacher-based assessments. There are advantages associated with efficiency for basing the teacher-based assessment on a single assessment measure. However, some reasons could be cited for using multiple measures. The fundamental advantage of using single measures is based on the idea that it is efficient (Stecher, Rahn, Ruby, & Alt 1996). The processes that determine the efficiency of these measures include the planning, administrative, and scoring processes, which demand reduced cost and resources. Single performance events could be considered as adequate for a competition whose objective is primarily honorary. Regardless of the simplification of such an assessment process, it would be difficult for teachers to prepare task specifications as well as scoring guides, subsequently train the raters for a single activity for each occupation. Engaging in multiple activities would be prohibitive since the method requires more time and resources that the government is continually reducing.
In spite of the efficiency displayed by using single assessments, a considerable number of educational researchers recommend using multiple assessment measures primarily because of reasons related to the validity of the assessments. The validity is a derivative of the idea that the teachers will have alternative windows of assessing the behavior of the students. In this regard, it is not possible to capture the effectiveness of a particular teaching practice by using a single type of assessment (Carter, 2012). Multiple assessment tests cover different areas such as the knowledge of the student and his or her ability to perform vital tasks. Since vocational education is sometimes related to health and safety issues, the government dictates that candidates should be in a position of demonstrating job-related knowledge as well as the ability to perform essential job-related tasks. The health and safety spectrum factors in the need for observing socio-cultural competencies that should be included in instructional and assessment provisions.
Multiple measurements also widen the student’s access to instructional content and strategies (Stecher, Rahn, Ruby, & Alt, 1996). Under similar conditions, it would be difficult for students from diverse backgrounds to send rich signals to teachers. Conversely, teachers might find it difficult to prepare students to succeed in assessment situations characterized by forced choice, open-ended written assessment, and exhibitions. This provision indicates that a number of aspects of the assessment process are affected by the consequences related to the use of assessment results. The degree with which the outcome is associated with essential rewards or penalties can affect the character, credibility, and the validity of assessment scores, including the influence that the scores have on instruction.
With the consideration that the teacher will be responsible for handling diverse student needs, the consequences of their performance are also dependent on the assessment methods employed. When handling diverse students, the use of alternative assessments can be complicated. The complications are derivatives of the situations that might prompt responses from students, the types of materials that could be used, and the cognitive demands that the assessments place on students, the procedure used for collecting student responses, scoring procedures, and the scope of the tasks (Stecher, Rahn, Ruby, & Alt, 1996). The complexities are partly responsible for the difficulties experienced in developing alternative assessment and the administration of the tests, which increase their cost.
The complexity involved also requires sophistication on the part of the users. For instance, it might be difficult to administer a performance assessment that requires the use of equipment and materials rather than paper tests. For instance, administering tests for laborers in the Associated General Contractors field might include the use of heavy machinery, hazardous materials, and exposure to dangerous working conditions (Stecher, Rahn, Ruby, & Alt, 1996). For this reason, the administration of such tests is complex since it places significant emphasis on the tasks to be completed. Therefore, teachers should not only be able to use their expertise to instruct students, but they should also develop appropriate portfolio tasks that cater for the needs of the diverse student population that should be specially trained to work under the identified circumstances.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it would be essential to point out that vocational education provides students with practical alternatives to traditional post-secondary degrees. Since the training is practical in nature, the assessments employed needs to appropriate enough to ensure that the students receive proper training and engagement to enhance the skills they need to apply in their job requirements. The analysis on the purpose of teacher base assessment has revealed that they are essential for determining whether the student has met industry standards or not. In relation to the determination of the most appropriate assessment method, the analysis provides that it would be vital to consider using a multiple rather than a single approach in the assessment of students.
The above provision calls for the need for the vocational educators to consider using multiple measurements to ensure that the different facets of the training program are covered, consequently enhancing the skillset of the students upon graduation from the vocational institutions. Even though the multiple measurements costly, it provides the basis upon which the quality of the training is assessed and judged as appropriate for the standards considered in the industry. The challenges are characterized by the administration of tests that might be inclusive of the use of heavy machinery, hazardous materials, and exposure to dangerous working conditions (Stecher, Rahn, Ruby, & Alt, 1996). For this reason, teachers should use multiple measurements to take care of the diverse needs of the student community.
References
Carter, D. S. G. (2012). Case Studies in Educational Change: An International Perspective. Routledge.
Custer, R. L., Schell, J., McAlister, B. D., Scott, J. L., & Hoepfl, M. (2000). Using Authentic Assessment in Vocational Education . Information Series No. 381.
Gargiulo, R. M. & Metcalf, D. (2012). Teaching in Today’s Inclusive Classrooms: A Universal Design for Learning Approach . Cengage Learning.
Jones, A. (2018). Vocational education for the twenty-first century. The University of Melbourne.
Mukhtar, M., & Ahmad, J. (2015). Assessment for Learning: Practice in TVET. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences , 204 , 119-126. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.08.124
Stecher, B., Rahn, M., Ruby, A., & Alt, M. (1996). Using Alternative Assessments in Vocational Education. RAND.
