Avidity Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence

Assessment is fair when the assessment process is clearly understood and agreed to by learners and when learners’ needs and characteristics are addressed.

Principles of assessment are the same as rules of evidence.

Principles of assessment are required to ensure quality outcomes.

Assessments should be fair, flexible, valid and reliable. These are the rules of evidence.

Rules of evidence are closely related to the principles of assessment and provide guidance on the collection of evidence to ensure that it is valid, sufficient, authentic and current.

Reliability means that the evidence is consistently interpreted and that two different assessors would come to the same conclusion in relation to competence.

Evidence is information which, when matched against a unit of competency or module, provides proof of competency.

Students need to demonstrate consistency in performance and a consistent ability to demonstrate skills when performing tasks.

As part of your judgement of competence you will need to ensure that you gain evidence of what the student has done and why they have done it.

It can be helpful when conducting observations to ask students questions to confirm their understanding of why they are doing the tasks in a particular way.

Assessment evidence, not your judgement, legally proves that the learner is competent or not yet competent, and has or has not attained the skills, knowledge and attributes as described in the unit of competency.