Carrying out a core skills assessment
There are two basic types of core skills assessment - diagnostic and indicative. There are no special accreditations required to administer either of these types of assessment. However, in practice, diagnostic assessments are generally carried out by qualified literacy specialists and indicative assessments are more likely to be used by trainers or RTO administration staff.
Diagnostic assessments are designed to formally assess the ACSF performance levels of learners and involve a set of assessment tasks and detailed conversation with the learner. The assessment tasks would be chosen according to their relevance to the course or qualification that the learner is undertaking.
Indicative assessments are often used by RTOs before a vocational training course begins to identify the approximate performance levels of students and determine whether they will need LLN assistance.
The table below shows some common types of assessment and their advantages and disadvantages. It is adapted from The Crux of the Matter: Language, Literacy and Numeracy and Vocational Education and Training (Queensland VET Development Centre, 2011).
| Assessment tool | Advantages | Disadvantages |
| Screening test | Can be administered to the whole group at once. | Does not capture the full range of LLN skills. Does not reflect the learner's actual on-the-job performance. |
| Self-identification | Can be administered quickly. | Learners may be reluctant to be honest about their needs. |
| Informal interview | Focuses on the individual learner, with assessment tasks tailored to their needs. | Time consuming. Some learners may not perform well in an individual interview. |
A practical way to carry out an indicative assessment is to use a combination of the above approaches. For example, the RTO may give all learners a 'screening' questionnaire to complete when they enrol in a course. This would include the opportunity for learners to self-report any LLN difficulties.
On the basis of these results, learners who are identified as being 'at risk' of having trouble with the LLN demands of the course would be given an interview to determine the extent of their needs.
There are many free resources available for assessing core skills and providing LLN support that can be downloaded from the web. These have generally been developed with funding provided by the Workplace English Language and Literacy (WELL) Program.
Here are two sources:
Precision Consultancy - providing a bank of assessment tasks for use as indicator tools
There are also various commercial assessment tools coming onto the market. One example is the Core Skills Profile for Adults, developed by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). It requires the payment of a licence to use it. You can try out a free demonstration version of this on-line tool at: