Bricolage

A client sent me a set of assessment instruments that he proposes to use and asked for my thoughts on them.

The first question was:

List the hierarchy of risk controls.

The answer is:

• Substitution
• Isolation
• Engineering
• Administrative controls
• Personal protection equipment

The only way that you would know the answer to that question is if you had done a course or read a book and memorised them

The purpose of the hierarchy of controls is to reduce risk.

The higher the option is on the list, the better the risk control. 

None of that information comes out in the question. It is also my experience that many people can recite the list, but have little knowledge of risk management principles.

I reworded the question and created a survey on Poll Daddy to allow him to ask the questions on-line in a way that would check understanding as well as recall.

It is not the ideal tool for on-line asessment, but does show how the questions ahould be worded for an assessment.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Adult learning principles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.