Competency Based Assessment is:
Criterion-Referenced
The person is assessed against an industry standard, or a set of criteria, to establish competency — for example, a driving test.
Evidence-Based
A process that matches evidence of competency against a defined standard, rather than relying on test scores alone.
Participatory
A process where the person and the assessor talk about and decide what and how evidence will be collected to judge competency against the standard.
Norm-referenced vs. Competency Based Assessment
You're probably familiar with tests and exams that measure performance as a percentage of accuracy, or compare you to other people — the traditional "pass" and "fail" system. This is known as norm-referenced assessment, and it isn't effective at determining whether a person can consistently perform a task to an agreed industry standard.
Norm-Referenced Assessment
- Student results compared against each other
- Statistical comparisons used to grade achievement
- Training assessed by mean/average performance
- Training courses and programs form the basis of assessment
- Only sectors of the training are used in the final examination
- Marking scales used for passing criteria
- Many questions or topics may be ignored
Competency Based Assessment
- Measures performance against agreed industry-defined standards
- Not compared to other participants, and not a simple pass/fail
- Producing evidence to make a judgement on competency
- Matched against a specific standard, not a course syllabus
- No important area of knowledge can be quietly skipped
- A participatory process between candidate and assessor
The problem with "passing"
A person can pass a norm-referenced assessment while answering only 50 per cent of questions correctly. But what happens if one of the questions they get wrong covers an important part of the job?
In a norm-referenced assessment, it wouldn't matter — the person still "passed," even though they never demonstrated a piece of knowledge that's critical to doing the job safely and competently.
Competency Based Assessment closes this gap. Instead of an average score, it requires evidence that every relevant standard has genuinely been met.
"Competency Based Assessment is producing evidence to make a judgement about whether the person is competent, compared to a particular standard."
Key terms
The gathering and judging of evidence in order to decide whether a person has achieved a standard of competence.
The four basic principles of assessment: valid, reliable, fair and flexible.
A process for confirming the correctness or soundness of information or findings — or an external process of verifying that an organisation satisfies the criteria for quality endorsement.