IMPROVE: Improving Validation of Competence of Career Guidance Practitioners -The professional Check up and its results

摘要

IMPROVE - Improving Validation of Competence of Career Guidance Practitioners is an international project co-financed by the European Commission within the Lifelong Learning Programme, Grundtvig measure. The IMPROVE project aimed at the development and testing guidelines with competence recognition of career guidance practitioners. The methodology for validation that was used in the program was based on a performance based approach, where the elements to be evaluated are job specific tasks that the practitioner has to master and the assessment is instead based on assessing or reconstructing performance. The Professional Check-up is a methodology for validation and improvement of competence of people at work coherent with the IMPROVE Guidelines [1].The Check-up consists of 3 meetings carried out face to face in person or in video using Skype during a 1-3 weeks period. The main purpose of theist meeting is to give additional information on the process to the candidate and check the functioning of skype. In the 2nd meeting takes place the evaluation where the facilitator questions the participant how he/she carries out his/her main task activities, according to a standard blueprint that is essential for all the facilitators. This methodology used in 2nd meeting is called PFI - Performance Based Interview. The 3rd meeting includes the feedback on the results the evaluator gives to the candidate and a plan for improvement or maintenance of his/her competence. This Check-up was tested in the pilot phase of the IMPROVE in 6 countries (Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain). It was focused on career guidance and participants were assessed on the main task "deliver career guidance interviews". About 50 evaluators have been trained and 140 career guidance practitioners have undergone the check-up. According to the results of the pilot, the methodology was proved to be efficient in discriminating between competent and not competent practitioner and for most of the candidates the process was not just an assessment of their competence, but also a mean of awareness and improvement of it.