Assessment Validation: What You Need to Know to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: What You Need to Know to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

Post-registration, RTOs are tasked with many responsibilities including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, and validation is often the most challenging.

Even though we’ve written about validation several times, let's revisit its definition. ASQA calls validation a quality review of the assessment process.

To put it differently, validation is the process of confirming the accurate parts of an RTO's assessment process and identifying what can be enhanced. A correct understanding of its components makes it less intimidating.

As stated in Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards necessitate conducting two types of validation.

The first assessment validation type verifies that your RTO's assessments adhere to the training package requirements within your scope.

The second validation ensures assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

Thus, we understand that validation is done before and after the assessment. This article highlights the first type: assessment tool validation.

The Fundamentals of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Essence of Assessment Validation

As we mentioned earlier and in our past blogs, validation consists of two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Assessment tool validation, known as pre-assessment validation, pertains to the first part of the clause, focusing on meeting all unit requirements and ensuring total workbook compliance.

Post-assessment validation, by contrast, focuses on implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

Here, we will concentrate on assessment tool validation.

How Assessment Tool Validation is Conducted

Now that we’ve differentiated the two types of validation, let’s examine assessment tool validation in detail.

Appropriate Times for Assessment Tool Validation

Assessment tool validation seeks to ensure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.

Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, assessment tool validation should be conducted before students use them.

There's no need to wait for your next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are suitable for student use.

Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:

- resources get updated
- when new training products are added on scope
- course is reviewed against training product updates
- identifying your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment

The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach to regulation means RTOs must conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources signal the need for assessment tool validation.

How to Choose Training Products for Validation

It's crucial to remember this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs should validate resources for each unit.

Essential Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Instructional Resources

To validate assessment tools, you need the complete suite of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – the first document to review. It indicates which assessment items meet unit requirements, aiding in faster validation.

Learner/student workbook – assess its appropriateness for use as an assessment tool. Verify clear instructions and adequate answer fields. This is often a gap.

Assessor guide/marking guide – also verify if instructions for assessors are sufficient and if clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – these could be checklists, registers, and templates created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.

Validation Board

Clause 1.11 outlines the requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be done by one or more people. Typically, RTOs require all trainers and assessors to attend and may invite industry experts.

As a whole, your validation panel must have:

Relevant vocational competencies and up-to-date industry skills for the unit being validated

Current expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its updated version

Validation tool/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.
Having a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It makes it simpler to see how each assessment item aligns with 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 serves as documentation that you have validated your resources prior to student use.

ASQA does not specify a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools in their entirety to ensure they meet the principles of assessment.

Assessment Principles Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

Although these templates ease the validation process, they can cause errors in judgment as there is minimal space for commenting 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 Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Inspection?

As highlighted in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it is essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to here adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment process provide equal opportunity and access to everyone?

Flexibility – Are multiple options available in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?

Validity – Does the assessment measure what it is supposed to measure? Is it a valid tool for evaluating the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment achieve consistent results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?

Fundamental Rules of Evidence

Validity – Does the evidence indicate that the candidate possesses 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 there adequate evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Is the assessment tool verifying that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Are the assessment tools in line with current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?

Although these are commonly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, a lot of tools still fail to meet these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:

Live Up to Your Words

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:

Complete each of the following activities at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication according to service and regulatory requirements:

nappying

prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment

prepare solid food and feed babies

respond to infant signs and cues appropriately

prepare infants for sleep and soothe them

monitor and foster physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate for the age

Having students explain changing nappies for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly address the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out 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.
Pay attention to the numbers. In our CHCECE032 example, one unit requirement requires students to complete the tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old. Doing the tasks twice with one baby isn’t sufficient.

Complete Compliance or Not Competent

Pay attention to lists. As illustrated above, if students perform only 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?
Could You Be More Specific?

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 a work package?
What type of information can be included in a work package?

Answers can include:

Required resources

Applicable expenses

Time assigned for activities

Allocated roles and responsibilities

If an assessment item demands multiple answers, specify the number of answers required from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence obtained is valid.

The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that ask for multiple answers simultaneously. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:

Identify a hazard and/or environmental concern in the work area and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Answers may include, but are not necessarily limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering controls

People – isolating, engineering, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge competence.

Considering these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” But such guarantees require you to wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.