Practical Skills Assessment

Content validity is achieved when the content of the assessment matches the educational objectives. Criterion validity is demonstrated by the ability of the test to relate to external requirements. Construct validity takes into account the educational variables, such as the native language of the students, to predict the test outcomes. Reliable assessments have consistent results; Reliability refers to the consistency of a measure. A test is considered reliable if we get the same result repeatedly.

Assessment is carried out to ensure that learning has taken place. This is used to measures the learner’s knowledge and skills in their chosen area of learning. Assessment can be used to encourage learners to ask questions on anything they have not understood, learners at some point will have to know that they will have to prove their knowledge and understanding to the standards of the awarding body.

Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2015) states that all nurses should be competent at carrying out an accurate assessment on patients of all ages safely using invasive and non-invasive procedures. Benner (1982) formed the stages of competency: Novice; this is where I started in year one, I had never done a manual blood pressure before and lacked confidence. Advanced beginner; this is where I feel I am at present, I can take a manual blood pressure with occasional supportive cues, I am more confident than the first time and my knowledge is improving. Competent; this is the stage I expect to be at when I qualify, I would like to feel confident and I intend to know exactly what I am doing and why. Proficient; this is where I expect to be

Competency Assessments are regularly carried out by the laboratory head/supervisor so that they get an idea whether all the employees are competent enough to perform the various laboratory tests/procedures on day to day basis(4). If for instance a particular team member is struggling with some procedure then they may not produce the correct results which will affect patient care, as the patient will receive the wrong set of results, thus it will cost them more money and time for their treatment. Thus, these assessments are ongoing throughout the year, plus QAPs are also done regularly in the laboratory to access the skill, performance of all the team members.

I was waiting for my turn in a line to do my pull ups test and my body was tire shaking soak wet. I knew that my goal was attainable fifteen was enough to show I deserved to be there. I visualized myself doing it with proper form, close to perfect while breathing in and out profoundly. My turn came along and the Navy SEAL that was training us looked to me and said “you go”, I jumped and graved the bar with a strong grip, in front of the top tier leadership of the police academies magnet schools, without adrenaline or nervousness doing my pull ups. I was in my pull up number nine when I felt that I was not able to sustain the form of the exercise and I gave up there. I was finish and then the Navy SEAL acknowledged me because I was the only

The Objective Structured Clinical Examination is a versatile multipurpose evaluative tool that can be utilized to assess health care professionals in a clinical setting. It assesses competency, based on objective testing through direct observation. It is precise, objective, and reproducible allowing uniform testing of students for a wide range of clinical skills. Unlike the traditional clinical exam, the OSCE could evaluate areas most critical to performance of health care professionals such as communication skills and ability to handle unpredictable patient behavior.

Under this approach the college or university will offer basic training in the form of: a certificate, Associate, Bachelors and Master's degree programs. Once students have completed these courses is when they must pass a state administered qualifying exam. This is designed to ensure that everyone entering the field is meeting basic minimum standards for competency. The problem is that this is not improving quality. Instead, the chances increase that there will be more errors made. This is because staff members are not fully qualified and experienced to work with the host of issues they will face on a daily basis. To fully understand the overall scope of these problems requires: identifying a patient care situation and analyzing

Most students study to prepare for exams, but many may be using ineffective and inefficient strategies. Cramming and simply rereading or restudying material does not lead to long-term retention, yet many students report cramming prior to an exam by re-reading chapters in their text and restudying their notes. Teachers encourage students to highlight and restudy, even though there may be a better way for students to spend their time studying. The testing effect is a well-researched phenomenon that may have a valuable application in a classroom setting: self-testing may help enhance student learning and increase retention along with test scores.

Validity refers to how well a test measures what it is supposed to measure (Center for Public Education, 2006). Reliability is necessary but also needs to be valid. For example, if I weigh myself in a scale that is off by five pounds, the scale will read my weight everyday with an additional of 5 pounds. The scale is reliable because it consistently shows me the same weight every day, but it is not valid because the scale is not showing my real weight. The same can be said with the assessments in the classroom. If an assessment was provided to the students to measure their achievement and ability in a particular subject, but instead the assessment measures concepts; then, the assessment is not valid (Education Portal, 2014).

Assessments are made to find out value and worth of something and to rate it. No one assessment method suits all. There are subjective and object assessment tools. Sometimes an organization or project is assessed on the basis of length and word count. Other times the assessment is objective to find out if the learner has the idea about subject or not. The assessment of mathematical subjects is very objective where the formulas used and answer received is worth more than the formatting. Assessment helps to record the level of knowledge or skills of a trainee. The assessment can be absolute or comparative (Principles of assessment, n.d.). The absolute assessment evaluates learner skills against set standards. On the other hand, the comparative assessment evaluates a group of learners against set standards as well as performance of each other. There can be initial assessment where the trainer is tested for prior knowledge before granting him admission or before offering a course to know if he capable of learning. Then there are formative tests that evaluate learner through the course till the end to evaluate if the trainee is effectively learning or not (What is Assessment? 2011).

In health care, even more than in other professions, training, development, and continuous assessment are some of the most important aspects of ensuring the continued excellence of workers in the field. In this profession, such excellence extends to more than only professional regard and ethics. Indeed, more often than not, it concerns human lives and the ability of professionals to ensure the best possible chance of survival for those in their care. Hence, training and education remain vital, as does continuously measuring competencies and evaluating training effectiveness. Without these, it is impossible to ensure that the health care profession maintains the high standards necessary to maintain its ethical and professional potential.

To accomplish the intended purpose of the assessment, reliability looks to see that every time it is administered it produces the same level of learning.

These tests are structured in such a way that they give learners an opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned and if they are aligned with the set standards. If they fail in certain areas, they should be able to work on their weak points. This was proven in a study by Jones (2007), as cited in Mons (2009), that these tests allow teachers to identify pupils' strengths and weaknesses and helps in improving the structure of teaching content for each school year, which in return caters for an updated curriculum for students. The Ministry of Education (1993, p. 86) also acknowledges this fact, stating that examination can be used to assess each student’s progress for promotion or selection. That measure of individual achievement can also be used diagnostically, to enable students to see what they have accomplished and where additional study is necessary. Teachers can also use the diagnostic information to determine appropriate remedial

A standout amongst the most vital drivers of student learning is the way that learning is measured and it has been demonstrated that students ' states of mind towards their studies are emphatically influenced by the nature and timing of appraisal. There are two noteworthy sorts of evaluations, subjective and objective. Subjective testing includes short-answer and fill-in-the-blank tests. Objective testing makes reference to matching, true/false and multiple choice tests. Subjective tests require students to be responsible for the answers. These tests are subjective on the grounds that they require valuation and finding from the grader. Objective tests require the student to choose particular answers gave by the test composer. These tests are objective on the grounds that the scoring in unbiased. There is no steady point of preference of one over the other. One is not characteristically better than the other. The determination of the evaluation sort to direct is dependent upon the measure of the expected learning result. Assessments are beneficial and have many advantages as well as disadvantages.

In a nutshell, functional competency inventory and design, is a tool which aims to measure the competencies of functional groups of organizations, which are affected by their respective core objectives. In 1973, McClelland supported “testing for competence, rather than intelligence.” By definition, competencies are “general descriptions of the abilities necessary to perform successfully in areas specified. Competency profiles synthesize skills, knowledge, attributes and values, and express performance requirements in behavioral terms. The review of