Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the Work Force Ready System?
- When will the Work Force Ready System be available to use?
- Where do the industry standards come from?
- What are the SkillsUSA Championships?
- How does the Work Force Ready System extend beyond the SkillsUSA Championships?
- How do employability skills fit into the Work Force Ready System?
- How is the Kellogg Foundation involved with the Work Force Ready System?
- Who is SkillsUSA?
- How are you ensuring that the Skill Connect Assessments are educationally sound?
- How will Skill Connect Assessments be used?
- Who are Skill Connect Assessments designed for?
- How frequently will Skill Connect Assessments be updated?
- What will Skill Connect Assessments cost?
- What is LearnMate, and how does it fit into the System?
- How can an online testing system replicate a hands-on assessment?
- Will Skill Connect Assessments only be available online?
- What skill level is being tested by the Skill Connect Assessments?
- How do Skill Connect Assessments address varying learning styles?
- What makes the Skill Connect Assessments different from other available assessments?
- How will the Skill Connect Assessments be administered?
- Are Skill Connect Assessments similar to industry certifications?
- What is the Work Force Ready System?
The SkillsUSA Work Force Ready System provides assessments for use as career and technical education (CTE) end-of-program assessments, as well as pre-employment assessments for industry. All assessments developed as part of this system are defined and supported by industry, education and policy leaders. The system helps instructors prove the benefit of their programs, and most importantly, helps young people prove they have the requisite skills to begin their careers.
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- When will the Work Force Ready System be available to use?
The Work Force Ready System is available at varying stages:- Skill Point Certificates: The first six were introduced in June 2007; 60 total technical areas will offer Skill Point Certificates in June of 2008.
- Skill Connect Assessments: The first eight Skill Connect Assessments will be available online in May of 2008. Skill Connect Assessments will be available in 20 additional areas in 2008 and the final 20 in 2009. Click here to view the technical areas that will be assessed.
- Skill Connect Excelerator: This tool for teachers will launch concurrently with the first eight assessments in the spring of 2008
- Where do the industry standards come from?
Industry standards are developed by SkillsUSA national competition technical committees. These committees represent diverse, leading organizations that serve their respective industries, collaborating with leaders from businesses, trade and professional associations and certifying agents to write the standards. For example, Honeywell, Lincoln Electric, Miller Electric and the American Welding Society are a few or the organizations represented by members of the welding technical committee. The technical committees annually review and update the industry standards upon which the Skill Connect Assessments and national competitions are based, ensuring that both the standards and the assessments are up-to-date and always meeting the needs of modern industry.
- What are the SkillsUSA Championships?
The SkillsUSA Championships is the showcase for the best career and technical students in the nation. Contests begin locally and continue through the state and national levels, and the Championships standards guide our assessments. This is a multi-million dollar event that occupies a space equivalent to 16 football fields. In 2007, there were more than 5,000 contestants in 87 separate events. Nearly 1,500 judges and contest organizers from industry, education and management will make the national event possible. The philosophy of the Championships is to reward students for excellence, to involve industry in directly evaluating student performance and to keep training relevant to employers' needs. For more information, visit http://www.skillsusa.org/compete/skills.shtml
- How does the Work Force Ready System extend beyond the SkillsUSA Championships?
Traditionally, young people involved in the SkillsUSA Championships did not have the means to validate or represent their outstanding levels of proficiency to employers. The Work Force Ready System allows students who achieve the cut score in competition to provide a certificate of proficiency to potential employers that lists the competency areas tested. The Work Force Ready System also extends these benefits to career and technical education students who do not compete at the SkillsUSA Championships through Skill Connect Assessments. While the Skill Point Certificates and Skill Connect Portfolio are only available to SkillsUSA members, membership in SkillsUSA is not a requirement to use the Skill Connect Assessments or the Work Force Ready System.
- How do employability skills fit into the Work Force Ready System?
Two Skill Connect Assessments will test employability skills. One is designed for secondary students, and the second was developed for post-secondary candidates. As deemed appropriate, some questions in Skill Connect assessments will also test for employability skills.
- How is the Kellogg Foundation involved with the Work Force Ready System?
The Work Force Ready System was originally supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation called Champions for Change. The goal of the grant was to help young people document their technical proficiency to employers while supporting vulnerable communities through work force development. For more information, click here .
- Who is SkillsUSA?
SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry to ensure that America has a skilled work force. We help every student excel. For more information, click here .
- How are you ensuring that the Skill Connect Assessments are educationally sound?
The SkillsUSA team has worked with education experts throughout the entire development process. Specifically, industry-based SMEs are validating competencies, led by CTE program design and instruction expert Dr. Brian Cochrane of Southern New Hampshire University.
Also, Dr. Nancy Cook-Smith of Harvard University is serving as a consulting psychometrician for the process and will guide item validation and assessment field testing efforts. The process will comply with the Standards for Educational & Psychological Testing published by the American Psychological Association and the National Council of Measurement in Education (1999).
For more information, please review our framework paper.
- How will Skill Connect Assessments be used?
Skill Connect Assessments help candidates prove their technical skills and knowledge to potential employers. They also help local instructors and programs demonstrate the value of their programs, while supporting local industries with a pool of potential employees that have been tested by a system they can trust. They may be used to identify individual educational needs as pre-assessments or to identify proficiency levels at the completion of a program of study. Skill Connect Assessments may serve as a portal or entry point for industry certifications, such as ASE, AWS and CompTIA, serving as preparation for the industry certification process.
- Who are Skill Connect Assessments designed for?
Skill Connect Assessments are designed for career and technical education programs at the secondary and post-secondary levels, in addition to entities conducting workforce development and training efforts to meet assessment and development needs for technical and employability skill attainment.
- How frequently will Skill Connect Assessments be updated?
The Skill Connect Assessments will be updated annually, based on updates from the subject matter experts on the SkillsUSA Championships and feedback from instructors provided through the Work Force Ready System.
- What will Skill Connect Assessments cost?
The Skill Connect Assessments were designed to be affordable. Anyone may take an assessment for $20, and SkillsUSA members may take an assessment for $5. For more information, click here.
- What is LearnMate, and how does it fit into the System?
Developed by intelitek, Inc., LearnMate is the easy-to-use, powerful backbone to the Skill Connect Assessment System. LearnMate is a proven, state-of-the-art assessment tool packaged within a robust learning management system. LearnMate enables a variety of question types (e.g. drag-and-drop, hotspots, simulations, etc.) designed to uniquely assess all types of learners, and tactile CTE learners in particular. Content and assessments are delivered, graded and tracked online, allowing access from anywhere, as well as for real-time reporting. Grading and feedback is immediate – for students, instructors and administrators. With LearnMate, all assessments can be mapped to both technical and STEM standards, allowing for detailed competency-based reporting and generation of skills gap analyses of test candidates. LearnMate enables instructors to output certifications immediately upon test completion, ensuring that there is no wait time for testing results and certificate generation. Click here for a short demonstration of sample assessment questions in the LearnMate system.
- How can an online testing system replicate a hands-on assessment?
The assessment questions will test students not only on theoretical knowledge, but also on practical know-how. The goal – an assessment in which a student who could not perform the task with his own two hands could not achieve a passing score. Through the use of media (e.g. graphics, video, animations), we delve deeper into skill assessment. See an example for yourself through our online demo.
- Will Skill Connect Assessments only be available online?
Yes, the Skill Connect Assessments will only be available online.
- What skill level is being tested by the Skill Connect Assessments?
Items have all been carefully designed such that a novice should score better than an individual with no background but lower than an expert.
- How do Skill Connect Assessments address varying learning styles?
Each Skill Connect Assessment includes approximately 50 items in a variety of question types. The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the premier capabilities of the LearnMate program allow for a variety of question types, ensuring that assessments appeal to auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners.
- What makes the Skill Connect Assessments different from other available assessments?
Interactive – The use of animations and interactivity, the variety of question types and the use of learning principles will allow the Skill Connect Assessments to assess a broader range of competencies and to assess them more fully than text-only multiple choice items typically found in end-of-program skill-based assessments.
Industry-driven – Assessments developed by industry experts evaluate standards and criterion on an annual basis, ensuring the assessments are relevant to current industry needs.
Responsive – The system provides instant results to candidates, allowing students and instructors to target areas of improvement. Also, through the Skill Connect Excelerator, instructors will be able to provide feedback about the assessments.
Diverse – Skill Connect Assessments will be available in 46 unique technical areas and evaluate technical, academic and employability competencie.
Affordable – Because SkillsUSA is committed to serving Career and technical education, assessments were designed with your budgets in mind. For more information about pricing, including discounted rates for SkillsUSA members, click here
- How will the Skill Connect Assessments be administered?
SkillsUSA is designing the Skill Connect Excelerator for instructors to administer assessments and track progress. The Excelerator will be a valuable resource for instructors, and you can learn more about it here. - Are Skill Connect Assessments similar to industry certifications?
Skill Connect Assessments are not intended to compete with or replace existing industry certifications such as those administered by AWS, NCCER and ASE. Rather, the Skill Connect Assessments can serve as a portal for those preparing to take those exams.
Still have questions? E-mail us at info@workforcereadysystem.org.
