Are you asking the right questions

A court in Queensland has been told that a fatally injured recent recruit copied the answers from an answer sheet to the assessment page. The trainer and the quarry general manager are being prosecuted.

According to reports in regional News Limited papers, Connor Milne underwent induction training that included two assessments of competence requiring him to demonstrate skills and proficiency on the equipment that he was employed to operate. The written answers on the two assessments "were copied from the respective answer sheet for each assessment," documents tendered in court allege.

Are you confident that the questions you rely on to certify your employees actually test their competence? It is over 50 years since Benjamin Bloom that differentiated between recall, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. What are you expecting your people to do? How are you confirming they are operating at the correct level?

If you are supplying the components for traffic lights it may be OK just to know that the coloured globes are red, green and yellow. If you are assembling the lights it is important to know the order in which they are put together. If you are learning to drive you will need to know what action to take when each light is showing. A competent driver will recognise that a "stale" green could change at any moment.

The questions asked of each level of practitioner will be different. Are your trainees being asked the right questions?

It is alleged that in the Queensland case that the injured employee was given the answer sheets and as a result "did not conduct a genuine test of Mr Milne's knowledge or competence. How are your trainers dealing with incorrect answers?

John Sleigh is a retired Queensland mines inspector. He is the author of Assessment That Works, Meeting Objectively and Learning From Experience, which are available through Xlibris.