This month, TSM Consulting would like to (re) introduce Aprolab's instruments.

Aprolab, a Proudly South African company and started by Dr. Terry Taylor, has created a number of Learning Potential psychometric instruments that attempt to reduce bias and prior learning. This allows candidates the opportunity to perform with an equal starting point and allows them the opportunity to uncover their true potential, and identify areas in need of improvement.

These instruments are utilised in many industries and widely applied for a number of different uses like bursary applications, job selection, and identifying potential candidates ear-marked for development and succession planning.

Three instruments, TRAM 1, TRAM 2 and APIL, are designed to identify candidates with the greatest potential to learn new skills and knowledge, particularly those skills which are crucial to success in the workplace and training or educational programs. Instead of evaluating the individual’s past skill acquisition, this new approach aims at assessing the person’s capacity to learn in the future. The most effective way to do this is to give the candidate new cognitively challenging material to learn in the testing situation and assess the degree of learning, which takes place. The learning material should be unrelated to the content of any real-life discipline to prevent any individuals having an unfair advantage.

TRAM 1, TRAM 2 and APIL all measure in this way and are designed to assess candidates from illiteracy to post-matric education. All three instruments have shown strong concurrent and predictive validity, some correlations in the 0.60’s and higher.

TRAM 1

TRAM 1 is used for people with 9 to 10 years of education. No reading is required on the part of testees since the administrator makes liberal use of overhead projections in explaining the nature of the test.

TRAM 2

TRAM 2 is designed for use with people who have 10 to 12 years of education. Instructions are given in written form in easy-to-read English (or Afrikaans).

Both TRAM 1 and TRAM 2 measure:

• Improvement of performance after practice and a lesson (learning rate);
• Transfer of knowledge and skill from one type of task to a similar one;
• Memory and Understanding of the test material;
• Speed of work;
• Accuracy of work;
• Conceptual reasoning.

This test is primarily used with candidates who have at least a matric and often a post-matric qualification.

The APIL battery produces the following scores:

• Conceptual reasoning;
• Speed of information processing;
• Accuracy of information processing;
• Cognitive flexibility;
• Learning rate (difference between last and first session in a repeated exposure exercise);
• Overall output in the above-mentioned learning exercise;
• Memory and Understanding of material to which the candidate was exposed;
• Transfer of knowledge and skill to new but analogous tasks in a graded learning exercise.

i-LAMP stands for “Interactive Literacy and Mathematical Profile”. As its name suggests, it assesses both literacy and numeracy in an interactive way. The instrument is interactive because a sorter test first determines the likely level that the person is at on literacy and numeracy, and then assigns the appropriate assessment material to check in more detail whether he or she is genuinely at that level. This instrument is quite useful in establishing levels in order to place people in the correct positions and using it as a baseline requirement for certain positions.

CogLab:

The CogLab program is an exciting training program that has been designed to develop both Conceptual and Analytical skills. The materials are both interesting and interactive and have ‘real world’ relevance. Students of this course often feel empowered and motivated and enjoy taking what they have learnt to the work place. The CogLab material is intended to enhance critical thinking and is aimed primarily at individuals who have 12 years of (generally substandard) education. Most of the tasks encourage the learner to think for him- or herself about a problem, rather than just apply a formulaic procedure. Poor quality education tends to emphasise the latter. Experience has shown that this course does actually increase these critical thinking skills.

Poor education, poverty and other types of deprivation constrain the development of skills and knowledge, which are beneficial to effective functioning in the world of work and education. These learning potential tests allow individuals with gaps in their repertoire of skills to be accurately and fairly measured and therefore be given an equal opportunity to perform in the South African workplace.

TSM Consulting is pleased to give you the opportunity to use these instruments. Should you require any further information, please contact Tanja Strangfeld (082 496 5909), Annene Hankey (021 – 872 9767), or Anne Jordaan (076 16 23357).

Kind regards from all of us!