Standard of Proof helped the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) develop a questionnaire which would help organisations understand the strengths, needs and progress relevant to each young people sustaining employment over time. The factors that could help these organisations identify needs and progress towards their long term goal – sustained employment – included aspects of individual’s foundational needs, employability and opportunity.
The intended use of the questionnaire highlights the importance of providing accurate information. If the data misrepresent a young person’s ability to sustain work, inappropriate decisions might be made that could have negative effects on the person. For example, the young person may be placed into work too early, before they are able to sustain a job, which may have a lasting negative impact on their future employment opportunities. Inaccurate information may be worse than having no information at all.
Standard of Proof, with the support of the University of Western Australia, applied the Rasch unidimensional measurement model to determine if the organisations and young people could use and interpret the data as intended, and if government organisations could trust the results. Of even greater importance at this early stage, the technique produced diagnostic information necessary to improve the questionnaire, making it easier for young people to respond to and providing information that everyone can rely on in order to inform the ‘right’ next steps.
The questionnaire identifying a young person’s ability to sustain employment
The measure and a summary of psychometric properties can be downloaded here:
