FAQs - Educational

A general selection of questions and answers relating to educational aspects the Assessment Tool has been collated below. To view a selection of questions and answers relating to Technical aspects, please click here.

For questions relating to specific tabs within the Assessment Tool, please refer to the relevant 'Frequently Asked Questions' links within the 'How to use the Assessment Tool' pages.

If you do not find the information you are looking for, please email your enquiry to us.

1.  Question 1 

   Q1. Where can I find an overview about the Assessment Tool?

   The Literacy and Numeracy for Adults Assessment Tool is an online adaptive tool primarily designed to provide robust and reliable information on the reading, writing, numeracy and vocabulary skills of adults. This information informs the development of learning interventions that match learners’ needs and strengthen their literacy and numeracy skills. The Assessment Tool also allows learners to track their progress over time and enable educators and organisations to report on the progress made by groups or cohorts of learners. Further overview and background information is available here.

2.  Question 2 

   Q2. Should the Assessment Tool be used for formative or summative assessment?

   In actual fact, it’s not the assessment that’s formative or summative, it’s how and when the information from the assessment is used. The Assessment Tool can be used to provide information that is used formatively to guide teaching and learning. It can also be used to measure learning in a summative way.

3.  Question 3 

   Q3. What will happen to all the data being collected?

   Data from the Assessment Tool will be used by educators to monitor progress of learners in programmes that receive funding for literacy and numeracy. This learner data will be useful for tertiary organisations as they plan appropriate learning programmes and monitor their effectiveness.

   The national data set will provide the TEC with information about the needs and issues of particular cohorts of learners in different contexts. The data is also available for research purposes within certain boundaries. At no time can any individual or individual organisation be identified in the national data set.

4.  Question 4 

   Q4. What is the purpose of assessing learner progress at Step 6?

   The purpose of assessing a learner initially is to identify their skills. However, a learner who is placed at Step 6 in an initial assessment will not need further assessments using the Assessment Tool.

   A learner who correctly answers all or nearly all of the questions in a non-adaptive assessment will be located above the scale locations of all or most of the questions in the assessment. This is because it is most likely that the learner is capable of answering many questions that are more difficult than the particular questions that were administered. This will result in a large margin of error related to their scale score. In these situations it likely to be appropriate to give the learner a post assessment that is more appropriately targeted to their skills.

5.  Question 5 

   Q5. ITOs do not deliver training, but they arrange training through employers, PTEs and ITPs. Assuming the PTEs and ITPs use the Assessment Tool for pre and post assessments, do ITOs also need to be using the Assessment Tool to assess learners? If so, why?

   ITOs need to understand whether the training they arrange is appropriate for their learners' literacy, numeracy and vocabulary skills and knowledge. This is particularly for ITOs that arrange embedded training programmes. They can monitor whether these programmes are strengthening learners' literacy and numeracy skills.

   To avoid over assessment it is possible for an ITP or PTE to view an assessment result completed for the ITO, with the learner's permission. Information on how to share assessment information between organisations is available here.

6.  Question 6 

   Q6. When administering the Assessment Tool, what information do I tell the learners to make it a meaningful assessment for them and understand how it relates to their learning?

   Lynette Winter from the National Centre of Literacy and Numeracy for Adults recently led a webinar on this topic, this can be viewed here.

   It is the role of the educator to explain to the learner that this is not a pass or fail test. It is an assessment that will help educators to strengthen the learning programme. The Assessment Tool is designed for people whose literacy and numeracy skills are within the Learning Progressions. Learners who do not reach a minimum of Step 1 of the Learning Progressions should not be given a Reading Assessment. However, they are likely to benefit from the Vocabulary Assessment and can have the Numeracy Assessment questions read to them.

   For learners whose literacy and numeracy skills are within the Learning Progressions Steps, an online adaptive assessment is likely to be the most appropriate assessment for a learner who is wary of being assessed. An adaptive assessment starts at about Step 2 of the Learning Progressions and adapts straightaway to the learners' results - that is, if a learner struggles to answer the first few questions correctly, the computer will choose easier questions for them.

   The educator can support the learner's understanding by:

   • How they introduce them to the Assessment Tool, including to the computer knowledge required
   • Using the Assessment Tool as it is intended; as one measure of a learner's achievement, and with learners whose literacy and numeracy skills are within the Learning Progressions
   • Discuss the report - to highlight strengths and areas to work on and follow up in their classes on areas needing work
   • Leaving a useful length of time between assessments (not over-assessing).

7.  Question 7 

   Q7. Why are some items context free?

   A number of items designed to assess to numeracy knowledge are context free in the sense that they do not sit within an authentic situation. These include, for example, items that assess a learner’s knowledge of number facts or their understanding of place value. These are deliberately without context so that the educator can determine whether the learners have control over specific sets of knowledge. When recognized or displayed automatically in isolation (context free) this knowledge will be available for the learner to draw on in any context.

   Of course an assessment that is set to guide teaching and learning is meaningful in its own right: assessments are set for purposes and in places that are relevant to the people undertaking them.

   A similar approach is taken to assessing components of reading and writing as outlined in the Starting Points Assessment Guide.

8.  Question 8 

   Q8. Can I use the Assessment Tool for screening and diagnostic purposes?

   The Assessment Tool has been designed to find out where a learner sits on the progressions in reading, writing, numeracy and vocabulary. Information about strengths and weaknesses can provide starting points to isolate specific learning needs. The Assessment Tool will give information about responses to individual items that represent different progressions as well as an aggregated score. The information will be most useful for learners when learners and educators together discuss a learner’s results and plan next learning steps.

   Educators might use a variety of screening tools, such as interviews, questionnaires, assessments and specific tasks to give a full picture of a new learner’s strengths and abilities.

9.  Question 9 

   Q9. Can learners be linked up to a qualification if their results are good enough?

   Listening, speaking, reading, writing and numeracy demands are embedded in many of the tasks that adults need to undertake in real life across a wide variety of contexts.

   The Learning Progressions are designed to assist in planning foundation programmes where improved outcomes for learners in literacy, language and numeracy are desired.

   The progressions provide a framework and language that can be used to identify next steps or gaps for learners as they develop expertise in these important areas. They have not been designed to link up with any qualification.

10.  Question 10 

    Q10. What research has been conducted to evaluate the results if learners merely guess at the multi-choice options?

    Each item used in the Assessment Tool was trialled before being included in the Tool for general use. Part of the analysis of trial data involved checking for evidence that learners were resorting to guessing on each item. Guessing can never be ruled out when selected response type items are used. As a response strategy it will generally not lead to success.

    When a learner is sitting an assessment that is 'at their level' and are motivated to choose the answer they believe is best, guessing behaviours can be minimised. The online adaptive assessment provides a way of targeting questions at the learner's level. During the development of a question every effort was made to ensure that correct answers did not stand out from the other available answer to a question.

11.  Question 11 

    Q11. Is the Assessment Tool more useful in a tertiary institution than a workplace?

    The Assessment Tool is suitable for use by any organisation that works with adults to improve literacy and numeracy. This includes tertiary education organisations that deliver formal education with embedded literacy and numeracy, community organisations that deliver intensive literacy and numeracy programmes and workplaces that provide programmes to strengthen employees' literacy and numeracy skills.

12.  Question 12 

    Q12. Do all learners have to be assessed at the end of their embedded programme?

    From 2011, all learners are assessed at the end of their embedded programme except where the first assessment in the Assessment Tool reports that the learner is:

    • at Step 6 in the numeracy progressions
    • at Step 5 or Step 6 of the reading progressions
    • at Step 5 or Step 6 of the writing progressions.

    Assessing mid-programme is at the discretion of the TEO and may be appropriate for some longer programmes.

    For further information please contact the TEC Service Centre by email: servicecentre@tec.govt.nz or Tel: 0800 601 301.

13.  Question 13 

    Q13. How do the steps of the learning progressions line up with levels?

    

    This chart illustrates how the different levels and steps may relate. Please note that the suggested alignment of steps and levels is based on the professional judgment of a small group of people and has not been formally tested. A benchmarking research project is planned to substantiate the alignment of these different frameworks.

    Note: All of the Adult Learning Progressions and National Standards are focused on literacy and numeracy knowledge and skills. NQF, NCEA and the NZC include a much wider range of subject areas. Consequently the alignments are indicative only.

    Aligning Levels October 2010

14.  Question 14 

    Q14. What is the difference between contextualised and specialised assessment?

    Specialised assessments are contextualized assessments that are specific to a particular course and would be developed and used in the context of the qualification that the learners are completing. The contexts used in the Assessment Tool are more generic, but are still intended to be meaningful to an adult.

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