AVETRA Conference April Canberra Joe Pagnoccolo Generic skills assessment: Development and validation of an instrument for apprentices in the traditional trades.

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Introduction  Specialist skill shortage across Australia in the trades.  Completion rates of apprentices across all trades.  Use of Generic skills in the VET sector ©Joe Pagnoccolo - Avetra Conference

Aim Of The Study  To develop, construct and validate a measure of six generic skills factors and then survey the instrument to all types of apprentices across Australia.  Motivation for doing it: To provide a measure that could act as a basis for generic skills research and to provide a psychometric measure for future work with apprentices across all trades. ©Joe Pagnoccolo - Avetra Conference

Method Conduct a literature review relating to generic skills. Find and develop questions relating to the scales chosen. Survey participants Demographics (Stage two) % male doing an electrical apprenticeship residing in Victoria, attending a via day release in a public training college in Melbourne. Most of the sample was between nineteen and twenty three years of age and had year twelve as the highest level of education prior to commencing their apprenticeship. © Joe Pagnoccolo - Avetra Conference

Procedure Stage One – Identified constructs, assembled 122 questions into a survey instrument. Conducted a pilot study across Australia. Stage Two – An iterative refinement process of the questions was organized. The final result, 47 questions across six scales in the questionnaire. Stage Three – Survey conducted across Australia and overseas. (N = 627) Statistical analysis conducted, revealed a multidimensional factorial structure containing 37 items with two existing scales & four new ones. ©Joe Pagnoccolo - Avetra Conference

Results FACTOR 1 g2.670 Working & Interacting g4.650 g3.619 g1.611 g g6.568 g g g8.496 FACTOR 2 g Application & Opinion g g g g g ©Joe Pagnoccolo - Avetra Conference

Results FACTOR 3 g COMMUNICATION g g g g g g5.528 FACTOR 4 g TEAMWORK g9.661 g g g ©Joe Pagnoccolo - Avetra Conference

Results FACTOR 5 g Accomplishing & Reporting g g g g g g FACTOR 6 g g Active Participation g ©Joe Pagnoccolo - Avetra Conference

Conclusion  New tool created, Swinburne University Apprentice Skills Assessment (SUASA)  Can be used with other validated survey instruments.  Contributes to vocational education research  Contains industry required skills.  Benefit to stakeholders of apprentices. ©Joe Pagnoccolo - Avetra Conference

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