Demystifying Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments

Demystifying Assessment Validation: How 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 covered validation in depth, let’s revisit its definition. ASQA defines validation as 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.

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

As per the standards, two kinds of validation are required.

The initial type of assessment validation ensures compliance with the training package assessment requirements within your RTO's scope.

The second kind of validation ensures assessments are carried out in accordance with the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

This indicates validation occurs before and after the assessment process. We will focus on the first type: assessment tool validation.

What are the Two Types of Assessment Validation?

An Introduction to Assessment Validation

As mentioned earlier and in one of our previous blog posts, validation is split into two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Pre-assessment validation or verification, also known as assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, ensuring all unit requirements are met and workbooks are 100% compliant.

On the other side, post-assessment validation pertains to the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.

How Assessment Tool Validation is Conducted

Having distinguished between the two types of validation, let’s dive into the details of assessment tool validation.

When to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

Assessment tool validation is intended to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.

Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.

You don't have to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Validate new resources right away to ensure they’re appropriate for student use.

Nonetheless, there are other reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:

- updating your resources
- your scope includes new training products
- when course is reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during the risk assessment

ASQA's risk-based approach to regulation necessitates regular risk assessments by RTOs. If there are student complaints about learning resources, it's an opportune time for assessment tool validation.

Choosing Training Products for Validation

Bear in mind, this validation aims to ensure compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs are required to validate all unit resources.

Essential Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Course Materials

For validating your assessment tools, you will need the full array of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – this should be the first document to examine. It shows which assessment items correspond to unit requirements, facilitating quicker validation.

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

Assessor guide/marking guide – verify that instructions for assessors are comprehensive and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are included. Clear benchmarks are key to reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – may consist of checklists, registers, and templates created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they are appropriate for the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Panel for Validation

Clause 1.11 specifies the requirements for validation panel members. It states validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.

Collectively, your validation panel must have:

Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to the unit being validated

Recent 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 equivalent

Assessment validation form/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.
Using a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It facilitates seeing how each assessment item matches 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 can also serve as proof that you have validated your resources before allowing students to 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 Checklist Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

Though these templates make validation easier, they can lead to judgment errors because they provide little room for comments on each assessment item.

We strongly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to them. Here is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Directions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Checking?

As we explained in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s vital that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Key Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunity and access ensured for everyone in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Does the assessment offer multiple ways to show competence according to different needs and preferences?

Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is supposed to assess? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment yield the same results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Evidence Basic Rules

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 ensure that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Are the assessment tools based on current units of competency and modern here industry practices?

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

To avoid employing learning resources that fail to meet all unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Show What You Mean

Observe the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the assessment item. For example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires 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:

nappy change

bottle preparation, bottle-feeding infants, and cleaning equipment

prepare solids and feed babies

respond properly to baby signs and cues

prepare and settle babies for rest

monitor and encourage suitable physical exploration and gross motor skills for the age

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.

Pay Attention to 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 won’t suffice.

Complete Compliance or Not Competent

Observe the lists. As noted above, if students are asked to 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?
Be Clearer

Each assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important that your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What sort of information can be included in a work package?

The answer may include:

Necessary materials

Relevant expenses

Time span of activities

Appointed duties and responsibilities

If an assessment item demands multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered is valid.

This also applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that ask for multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:

Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the workplace and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Possible answers can include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering

People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and enables assessors to accurately judge competence.

Seeing these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But such guarantees mean you must wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.