Cognitive assessment is used across a number of scenarios to assess people on their knowledge, skills, abilities as well as behavioural preferences. We’re sure you’ll remember having to take tests at school, particularly in subjects you didn’t like or weren’t interested in. Did you revise in advance for the test? Did you make your best effort?

Tests are used in clinical, occupational and recruitment settings as well education and training. Whether we are assessing learners for their knowledge of health and safety policies, technical information relevant to their apprenticeship, or whether they demonstrate the appropriate behaviours and values for a specific job, the accuracy of the result depends on good assessment design as well as “test-taker motivation”.

The importance of test-taker engagement

If test-takers are not interested in making their best effort then the assessment result is not a true representation of their knowledge, skill or ability. This then makes the result invalid. This is particularly important for the assessment of learning support needs where we do not want to mislabel learners nor their abilities or potential. The assessment of young children’s cognitive abilities, for example, is particularly challenging. The child needs to be fully engaged and encouraged in the assessment tasks.

Learners who are asked to complete tests should understand the purpose of the assessment and how it might benefit them. Individuals completing recruitment tests will be motivated by the goal of gaining a paid job. Many will complete time-consuming assessments to achieve this goal.

In comparison, the benefits of completing cognitive assessments for learning support should be explained to learners. People are often anxious about completing assessments – unless they are very confident that they will pass. They can also have concerns about how others will view their result. There could also be an impact on their self-esteem and identity if they think they failed. An assessment process might remind them of previous negative experiences during their time in education. Research has shown that excessive test anxiety results in under-performance. This results in the individual’s ability not being correctly recognised.

These challenges can be overcome with good design and administration of tests. Good assessment design includes a number of factors such as:

• Ensuring that the assessment content is appropriate for the apprenticeship level and that the correct responses cannot be easily guessed.
• Ensuring that the test is not easy or too difficult, as this will not be motivating for a best-effort attempt.
• There are enough questions for the assessment to be reliable, whilst not too long that test-takers get bored and drop out.
• The visual design of the test should be easy to understand so that questions can be easily answered giving a choice of keyboard, mouse or touchscreen. The assessment should also be designed to minimise distractions. This can be achieved with a full-screen overlay.

The purpose of good test administration is to reduce anxiety and increase motivation, and involves:

• Ensuring the learner understands the purpose of the assessment and how the data will be used.
• Having clear instructions that the learner can review multiple times before taking the assessment.
• Reminding the learner that they should complete the assessment in an environment where they will not be distracted or disturbed.
• Providing an opportunity for the learner to discuss the results after the assessment is completed.

Despite good assessment design there may be individuals who do not take the assessment seriously. For example, they may randomly select multiple choice answers in order to complete the assessment as quickly as possible regardless of the result.

How Aptem Assess is designed

We designed Aptem Assess to provide a rapid measure of key cognitive abilities that underpin learning and achievement. In a short amount of time, it can highlight learners who may have an underlying specific learning difficulty. It shows which learners require a further exploration of their learning support needs.

Aptem Assess is designed to be adaptive, so that learners do not have to spend excess time resulting in frustration. The visual design is created with some gamification elements which is more motivating for test-takers. In addition, Aptem Assess generates a ‘Quality Score’ which highlights where careless responding has occurred, and the result cannot be relied upon.

Learn more about Aptem Assess

For an estimated 87% of learners, the Aptem Assess cognitive assessment will take no more than 15 minutes. You can learn more about Aptem Assess here. If you would like to integrate Aptem’s cognitive assessment into your delivery, book a demo, or if you are an Aptem customer, please speak to your Customer Success Manager.