Basic Issues
It is important that voting operations managers are satisfied that voting operations staff have sufficient understanding of their duties to undertake them competently in the pressured atmosphere of voting stations and counting centres. Poorly performing staff in voting stations can disrupt the voting process and at worst, through incorrect application of voting or counting procedures, result in challenges to election validity. Knowledge assessment methods are also an integral part of the performance evaluation of training programs (see Evaluation of Recruitment and Training).
Integrating Assessment into Training Session Activities
It is preferable that the knowledge of staff undergoing training is assessed before they leave the training session. This could be a continuous assessment process during the session. For this style of assessment, performance during simulations and in group activities is a useful guide, though care must be taken to ensure that less extroverted personality types or those for whom past gender or minority discrimination practices have induced a less participative manner are equitably assessed.
Integrating knowledge assessment into the training presentation in this fashion is cost-effective, requiring no special assessment materials or additional time. It is also a most practicable method in societies of lower literacy. However, assessment using this method does require good training skills: where relatively unskilled trainers are being used in a cascade training approach, it will have limitations.
Staff Self-Assessment
At the end of critical points in the training program, the trainees themselves may be asked to identify areas where they believe they require further information or training to undertake their duties competently. These concerns can be addressed through additional individual counseling during training session breaks, or modification to the remainder of the training program to allow additional revision and further discussion of areas where the group in general requires more information.
Use of Workbooks
Alternatively, staff could be required to complete workbooks containing questions on their required knowledge, either during the training session itself or in their own time. To provide a stimulus to learning, confirmation of employment can be made dependent on satisfactory completion. As an additional refinement, workbooks and answer sheets may be separate documents, so that the trainee keeps the workbook for continued review.
Questions and exercises in the workbooks should be related to specific issues covered in the training session and covered in the appropriate manual (see Training Reference Materials). This method will require the print and distribution of a large quantity of additional materials, and also place additional demands on the time of trainers, so it has some cost disadvantages. (For examples of a training session workbook and answer sheet for polling staff in general, see Polling Staff Workbook - New Zealand 1996 and Polling Staff Answerbook - New Zealand 1996.)
Where there are separate training sessions for staff having specific functions to perform (particularly where they are involved in delivering special voting services), separate functionally-based workbooks for knowledge assessment in these different areas will be needed. (For examples of these, see Home Workbook, General Polling Staff, Australia and Home Workbook, Specialist Polling Staff, Australia.)
For managers of voting stations, intensive assessment both during the training session (see Session Workbook, Senior Polling Staff, Australia) and further homework (see Home Workbook, Senior Polling Staff, Australia) may be required to ensure they are fully capable of such important responsibilities.
Awards
Awarding of certificates to voting operations officials who have successfully completed training programs, and whose competencies in their tasks have been assessed as sufficient, can be a useful method of stimulating interest during training. Arranging for voting operations official training, particularly where it contains trainer training components, to gain accreditation under technical education schemes can also stimulate interest, both in voting operations official recruitment and training participation.
