A Calculus of Occupational Skill Attainment: Building More Validity into a Valid Assessment System

摘要

This study investigated several aspects of occupational skill assessment as implemented in one state: (1) What is the extent to which student achievement on the cognitive component was related to their achievement on the psychomotor component of the technical skill assessments? (2) How efficiently was their overall composite attainment calculated? And (3) How well did this attainment predict student productivity on the job as determined by the employer’s customer satisfaction? A sample of 118 student attainment scores on the written and performance components showed positive correlation. Further, this attainment was positively correlated with employers’ customer satisfaction ratings. The panel of 16 national experts who participated in this study concluded that the Nedelsky (1974) method used to set the cut score needed to be re-evaluated. They also recommended that the scheme of calculation for determining one composite achievement level from the two test components should be modified.