VACS

Evidence gathered in the assessment should meet the standard of VACS.

The gathering of evidence must be:

Valid

Definition: The evidence focuses on the requirements laid down in the relevant standard and matches the evidence requirements of the outcome/s at hand under conditions that mirror the conditions of actual performance as closely as possible.

Validity links directly to the Unit Standard information and can only be achieved when ALL the Outcomes, with all their Assessment Criteria, and all their range-statements, as well as all Unit Standard notes, are met by the learner during assessment.

Assessment doesn’t always test all the outcomes of a unit standard at once. Be sure that as assessor, you know and indicate against which outcome you have gathered evidence during your assessment.

Evidence Can Only be Judged Valid If...

It is the learner’s own work.

The assessor that gathered the evidence is a subject matter expert in the field in which they gathered the evidence.

Authentic

Definition: The assessor is satisfied that the evidence is attributable to the person being assessed.

To prove that evidence is authentic can be quite tricky. Some methods which are employed to ensure authentic evidence is to request the learner to sign a Declaration of Authenticity as oath that the evidence submitted is the learner’s own.

Where handwriting is visible, evidence can be judged as authentic by judging if the same handwriting appears on all pieces of evidence.

With experience and where multiple assessments of the same kind are conducted, you will quickly pick up if learners are repeating each other’s answers or have copied from each other.

It is a good strategy to phrase assessment questions in such a way that the learner has to recall a personal experience or phrase in his/her own words.

Remember to request learners to fill in all their particulars where required on assessment documents and to sign the documents where required to do so – these signatures also serve in verifying the authentic nature of the evidence.

Example: Examples of methods to encourage the learner to reflect their own understanding when phrasing your questions:

• “Think of a time when you…”
• “What do you understand the phrase “x” to mean?”
• “If you were the manager, how would you explain to your staff…?”
• “Explain to a co-worker…”
• “In your own words, explain…”

Current

Definition: The evidence is sufficient proof that the learner is able to perform the assessment outcomes at the time the assessor declares the learner competent.

Currency refers to when the evidence was gathered and if it is still valid in the form in which it was gathered. There is a trend that evidence older than 12 months is no longer considered current, but there are no hard-and-fast rules in terms of this.

Currency is often judged on the Registration End Date of a unit standard and weather a unit standard has already expired or not. A unit standard which has expired can still be used for up to 2 years after the expiration date, but where possible, refer to the Unit Standard which has replaced it instead.

Remember to date all the evidence that you gather – these dates will confirm if the evidence is current or not.

Sufficient

Definition: The evidence collected establishes that all criteria have been met and that performance to the required standard can be repeated consistently in the future, i.e. the performance to standard is not a "once-off".

Sufficiency relates to the fact that the evidence gathered is sufficient to show that the learner can do what is required from him/her. Only once the learner is capable of reflecting the evidence in such a way that you as assessor is sure that this learner will be able to produce the same evidence again in future, is the evidence sufficient. This is often where the failure of tests and exams comes in – a learner’s ability to pass a test once does not guarantee that the learner will be able to recall the knowledge again in future.

To sufficiently gather evidence, assessors often employ a strategy where evidence is gathered in a “formative” way, which shows how the learners is learning the skill or knowledge and then in a “summative format” which show that the learner can use this skill or knowledge again.

Example: A formative activity might require the learner to role-play in the classroom situation with his/her peers how to make a cup of coffee. A summative assessment will be where the learner is observed making a cup of coffee for the assessor.

Sufficiency guarantees that the assessment meets the criteria in its entirety and that the learner can perform the task again in future, which ensures that he/she actually learnt something and that the evidence can be judged again by any other assessor if needs be.