Assessment Validation Essentials: Guide to Validating Assessments
Assessment Validation Essentials: Guide to Validating Assessments
Blog Article
With registration, RTOs must juggle many responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, where validation often causes the most anxiety.
While we've discussed validation in multiple articles, let's return to the basics. ASQA defines validation as a quality check of the assessment process.
In other words, validation identifies which elements of an RTO's assessment process are done right and which need improvement. A proper understanding of its key components makes the task less daunting.
As per Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs are required to ensure that their assessment systems, including RPL, meet training package requirements and are conducted following the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
According to the standards, two types of validation must be conducted.
The first kind of assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessment adheres to the training package requirements within your scope.
The following validation type ensures that assessments follow the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This shows that validation happens pre- and post-assessment. We will focus on the first type—assessment tool validation.
An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Understanding Assessment Validation
As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is split into two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, is concerned with the first part of the clause, which ensures all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are fully compliant.
On the other hand, post-assessment validation deals with implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
In this write-up, we will focus on assessment tool validation.
How Assessment Tool Validation is Conducted
After reviewing the two types of validation, let’s explore the specifics of assessment tool validation.
Timing of Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation seeks to ensure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
This means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, assessment tool validation must be performed before they are used by students.
You don’t need to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.
Yet, this is not the only occasion to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- your resources get updated
- add new training products on scope
- you review your course against training product updates
- identifying your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority employs a risk-based approach for regulating RTOs and expects regular risk assessments. Therefore, student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
Bear in mind, this validation is meant to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs are required to validate all unit resources.
What Do You Need for Assessment Tool Validation?
Training Materials
To validate assessment tools, you need the complete suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – this is the initial document to review. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, speeding up validation.
Learner/student workbook – during validation, check if it's suitable as an assessment tool. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common gap.
Assessor guide/marking guide – confirm that instructions for assessors are adequate and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are present. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – such as checklists, registers, and templates created independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they are suitable for the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Team for Validation
Clause 1.11 describes the requirements for validation panel members, stating that validation can be conducted by one or more individuals. RTOs often require all trainers and assessors to be present, occasionally including industry experts.
Your validation panel must, as a group, possess:
Up-to-date vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated
Current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its future version
Validation checklist/template
Having a validation tool helps you with both the validation process and documentation. Using a validation tool makes it easier to look at how each assessment item maps against each unit requirement.
A validation tool assists in both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies identifying how each assessment item corresponds to each unit requirement.
At the same time, it can serve as your document evidence that you have validated your resources before letting the students use them.
It also serves as evidence that you have validated your resources before students use them.
Although ASQA does not recommend or require a particular template for assessment tool validation, many templates are available online. These tools typically have validators review the tools in their entirety to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Though these templates simplify validation, they can lead to judgment errors due to limited space for comments on each assessment item.
It is advisable to use a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Below is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?
As highlighted in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it is essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Core Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment provide different options to demonstrate competence according to individual needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment evaluating what it is intended to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment achieve the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently make decisions on skill competence?
Essential Rules of Evidence
Validity – Is the evidence showing that the candidate has the skills, knowledge, and attributes described in the unit of competency and associated assessment requirements?
Sufficiency – Is there enough evidence to ensure that the learner has the skills and knowledge required?
Sufficiency – Is the evidence sufficient to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Does the assessment tool verify that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools based on current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?
Although these are regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools still struggle to meet these requirements.
To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Walk the Talk
Observe the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the assessment item. For instance, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement asks students to:
Perform each of the following at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication in accordance with service and regulatory requirements:
changing nappies
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies, and clean equipment
prepare solid food and feed infants
respond suitably to baby signs and cues
prepare and settle infants for sleep
monitor and foster age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Getting students to describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.
Look Out for Plurals!
Pay attention to the numbers. In our example on one of the unit requirements of CHCECE032, this single unit requirement calls for the students to complete the tasks at least once on two different babies under 12 months of age. Having students complete the tasks listed twice on just 1 baby won’t cut it.
Mind the numbers. In our CHCECE032 example, one unit requirement asks students to complete the tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old. Doing the tasks twice with one baby doesn’t suffice.
Total or Not Competent
Mind the lists. In the previous example, if students perform just half the tasks listed, it’s non-compliant. Each assessment item must address all requirements, or the student is not yet competent and the assessment tool is non-compliant.
Can you be more specific?
Clarify Further
Every assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, make sure your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in get more info a work package?
What sort of information can be included in a work package?
The answer may include:
Necessary resources
Relevant expenses
Time required for activities
Specified roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.
The same is true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those asking for multiple answers at once. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, engineering
People – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Seeing these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” However, with such guarantees, you must wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.