Leading education provider Kaplan Professional has taken its first steps to standardise and administer a national assessment for financial advisers with the launch of the Kaplan-UNSW Global Diagnostic for Financial Advisers (KUDOS).
Developed in consultation with world-class psychometricians from UNSW Global’s Education Assessment Australia (EAA), Kaplan Professional’s subject matter experts and a panel of senior industry practitioners, KUDOS is a scientifically-validated assessment of an adviser’s technical knowledge and skill.
Designed to give licensees and training managers the tool they need to accurately gauge the capability level of their adviser network, the diagnostic identifies strengths and weaknesses in key areas and performance in relation to other advisers.
Kaplan Professional CEO Brian Knight said KUDOS is uncompromising in its quality and is a new national benchmark in financial advice capability assessment.
“KUDOS will empower licensees and their advisers to adapt and prosper in a rapidly changing landscape because it minimises the risk of poor financial advice.
“As the industry becomes more transparent in regards to adviser knowledge and education standards, KUDOS will become an invaluable tool as it encourages a culture of compliance and continuous improvement.
“With such in-depth reporting and unrivalled insight, I see KUDOS being utilised for recruitment purposes, training and continuing professional development gap analysis, corporate and industry benchmarking, and compliance monitoring,” he said.
The assessment which determines the diagnostic report has questions ranging between Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) Levels 5 to 8 with the current average assessment set at Advanced Diploma (AQF Level 6), and covers seven key knowledge areas: investments and markets, social security, financial strategies, taxation, legislation and compliance, superannuation and retirement income investments, and life insurance risk management.
Results are reported on a scale from Band 1 (basic understanding of key concepts and fundamentals) to Band 4 (mastery in application of concepts and fundamentals, and superior skill in application to client scenarios), which represents the level of skill and understanding in each specific knowledge area.
Kaplan Professional Head of Faculty Jennifer Hornsey said the development of KUDOS began in late 2014, and has undergone lengthy psychometric and data analysis.
“We have worked closely with psychometricians from UNSW Global’s EAA who utilised the latest advances in measurement in order to develop a valid and object assessment – expertise was provided in test targeting, test equating and scaling, and differential item functioning.
“Every question was reviewed for curriculum validity and structure by Kaplan Professional subject matter experts … the overall assessment was then reviewed and appraised by a panel of senior industry practitioners.
“KUDOS is fit for purpose,” she said.
UNSW Global CEO Dr Rob Forage said KUDOS is an excellent example of corporate partnering that creates new solutions and sets industry standards.
“UNSW Global is very pleased to be working with Kaplan Professional and building on the obvious synergies between professional education and rigorous assessment expertise.
“We are currently delivering assessments in some 20 countries and to over a million clients annually.
“The quality and objectivity of our international assessment expertise underpins our alliance with Kaplan Professional,” he said.
Kaplan Professional and UNSW Global will continue to develop and enhance KUDOS by developing and validating additional questions for the question bank.
This will enable the development of client-centric and specialist tests, as well as enhancing test security and establishing competency norms across the industry.
The commercial version of KUDOS is now live and open for enrolments.
