Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Employability skills in the world of welfare to work: an application of item response theory to criterion referenced testing
    Bull, Gregory J. ( 2010)
    This study extends the research on generic employability skills by developing a valid and reliable assessment of employability skills for jobseekers engaged in vocational rehabilitation. Literature on key competencies and generic employability skills in the broader context of the Australian work force is reviewed and the Employability Skills Framework (ACCI & BCA, 2002) is integrated with the Choose Get Keep model of employability from the field of vocational rehabilitation (Farley, Little, Bolton, Chunn, 1988) to construct a developmental model of vocational rehabilitation. A probabilistic model of competency assessment (Griffin, 1995; 2004) was used in conjunction with the partial credit Rasch model (Rasch, 1960; Masters, 1982) and criterion - referenced assessment (Glaser, 1960; Glaser, 1981) to develop an assessment of employability skills for vocational rehabilitation. The SOLO taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982) was used to develop interpretable performance indicators for each item. The expertise of vocational rehabilitation professionals was used to identify the personal attributes and elements from the eight employability skills outlined in the Employability Skills Framework to develop items for an assessment of employability skills for vocational rehabilitation. A pilot study in which 20 jobseekers were assessed was used to review and refine the assessment instrument. The modified instrument was trialed by 28 volunteer assessors on 73 volunteer jobseeker participants from urban and regional Victoria. The results of the study demonstrate that it is possible to identify and assess personal attributes and elements of the eight employability skills for vocational rehabilitation and that they form a uni-dimensional construct which fits the parameters of the partial credit Rasch model (Master, 1982). A final version of the assessment made up of 22 employability scale items was named the Jobseeker Assessment of Employability Skills (JAES). The JAES was found to have good internal consistency and a high level of person and item separation reliability. Construct validity was demonstrated by confirming that the employability skills scale fitted the uni-dimensional Rasch measurement model and that the items formed a line of increasing intensity measuring a single construct. Estimates of individual jobseeker‟s employability skills were calculated both in logits and in a more easily interpreted scale with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100 termed the Emp. 500. In addition a feedback form was developed for the purpose of providing individual feedback to jobseekers to assist with further skill development. Implications of the approach taken and the use and further development of the scale are discussed.