Assessment Validation and You: Steps to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation and You: Steps to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
Among the numerous obligations RTOs face post-registration—annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, marketing compliance—validation is often the most dreaded.
Although we've written about validation many times, let’s redefine it. ASQA refers to validation as a quality review of the assessment process.
Validation involves verifying which areas of an RTO's assessment process are correct and highlighting where improvements are needed. Understanding its key components makes the task less intimidating.
As per the 2015 SRTOs Clause 1.8, RTOs are required to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, meet training package requirements and follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
According to the standards, RTOs must conduct two types of validation.
The initial assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements.
The second kind of validation ensures assessments are carried out in accordance with the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
It indicates that validation occurs both before and after the assessment. The focus here is on the first type: assessment tool validation.
An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Exploring the Concept 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.
Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, emphasizing the need to meet all unit requirements and ensuring all workbooks are 100% compliant.
Conversely, post-assessment validation focuses on the implementation side, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.
How Assessment Tool Validation is Conducted
With a clear understanding of the two types of validation, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
Timing for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
The objective of assessment tool validation is to ensure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation is necessary before student use.
There's no necessity to wait for the next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are appropriate for student use.
However, this isn't the only time to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- resources are updated
- your new training products get added on scope
- course is reviewed by you against training product updates
- learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based regulatory approach means RTOs should conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources are a prime opportunity for assessment tool validation.
Choosing Training Products for Validation
Recall, this type of validation aims to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs must validate each unit's resources.
Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation
Training Materials
Since you are validating your assessment tools, you will require the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the initial document to investigate. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, helping speed up validation.
Learner/student workbook – ensure it is suitable as an assessment tool during validation. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.
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 – might include checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Panel
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.
Collectively, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated
Up-to-date knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning
Any one of these training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the equivalent successor
Validation document/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.
ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates can be found online. These tools often have validators review the tools as a whole to verify if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Checklist Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While these templates facilitate the validation process, they can result in judgment errors due to the limited space for comments on each assessment item.
A more detailed template is recommended to thoroughly inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that align with them. Below is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Inspect?
As mentioned in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you need to ensure that your assessment tools allow trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Core Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various ways to demonstrate 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 consistent results each time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Core Rules of Evidence
Validity – Is the evidence demonstrating 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 there enough evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool confirming that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools reflective of current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?
Although these are regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools still struggle to meet these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that do not address some unit requirements, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:
Demonstrate What You Teach
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 tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication per service and regulatory requirements:
change diapers
bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment
solid food preparation and feeding babies
respond to baby signs and cues appropriately
prepare and settle infants for rest
monitor and support physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate for the age
Having students explain the process of nappy changing for babies under 12 months old doesn’t fulfill the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out the tasks.
Watch Out for the 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 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.
All 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?
Be Clearer
Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Hence, it’s important that your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What kinds of information can be included in a work package?
Possible answers could more info include:
Needed resources
Related costs
Time span of activities
Allocated duties 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 asking for multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse both students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers can include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering controls
People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to judge student competence accurately.
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.