Your candidates will collect evidence throughout their assessments via observation, questioning and more than likely other sources such as written reports, witness statements and work products.
Supporting your candidates in collecting evidence and building their portfolio will help to ensure presentation is clear and logical.
There are two types of evidence:
1. Primary or direct evidence
This is the highest quality of evidence and gathered by candidate during real work activities. For example, observation by an Assessor (e.g. you), work product, results from questioning, videos of performance, simulation, and witness statements.
2. Secondary or in-direct evidence
This is evidence collected that supports the candidates competence, for exmaple:
- results from knowledge assignments (distance learning, exams, etc)
- photographs or video footage of work
- work records and reports
- maintenance and operational logs
- training and appraisal records
- references and testimonials from previous employers
To ensure evidence is reliable and allows you to make an accurate decision, there are rules of evidence to abide by.
We consider these ‘Rules of Evidence’ to be:
- Validity – ask yourself, ‘does this piece of evidence actually tell me that the candidate performed to the specified standards?’
- Authenticity – was the evidence actually completed by the candidate?
- Currency – does the evidence relate to activities that have been completed in the last 12 months?
- Sufficiency – has sufficient evidence been collected to ensure that all performance criteria have been met? And has the evidence been collected over at least 3 activities?
Inevitably there will be difficulties in making decisions when evidence does not clearly adhere to the rules. In situations like this, it is important to reflect on your own ability to assess personnel and make an objective decision based on standards and performance criteria alone.
You must try to avoid being subjective and making decisions based on personal opinions.
Here are a few tips for collecting evidence that you could pass on to your candidates:
- Index all evidence and identify which competence it supports.
- Ensure signatures of candidate, witnesses and assessors are included on all evidence.
- Ensure all competencies are complete prior to final grade assessment by MTCS.
- Encourage the candidate to make a checklist for all the evidence collected.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us directly on enquiries@mtcs.info or call the MTCS customer support team on +44 15394 40200