Helpful strategies when sharing information with learners:

• Share results ASAP - ease their fear of the unknown - in fact, involve learners throughout the process.
• Explain that the process is intended to help them build a plan and effective strategies - not to label them.
• Feedback should be handled sensitively and results should be interpreted in relation to an individual's life circumstances.
• Provide objective evidence of their strengths and weaknesses, which can be empowering for most adults.
• Listen to what is important for the learners. What areas of learning do they want to focus on?
• Take away any mystery; this helps learners to become part of the process.
• Keep them informed and involved.
• Encourage learners to identify and respond to their areas of difficulty.
• Be honest.
• Encourage learners to be open about the findings and accept them so that they can use them to benefit themselves in future situations.³²

Ongoing self-assessment works when learners have been active participants in the goal setting process. To ensure that learners own their goals, they need to feel responsible for their own success. They need to buy into the process. Learners need to understand and accept their strengths and struggles. The practitioner's role is to help facilitate the process by providing learners with guidance to the process not content. Learners need to not only feel but also to see that they are in control of the process.

The information gathered is key to building instructional strategies and techniques. By setting the stage, learners will understand their role in the ongoing assessment process. This helps to build their ownership of the process and responsibility for learning.