Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

RTOs have numerous responsibilities post-registration, including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and ensuring marketing compliance. Among these tasks, validation often stands out as particularly challenging.

Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes 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.

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.

According to the standards, RTOs must conduct two types of validation.

The first kind of assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessment adheres to the training package requirements within your scope.

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

This suggests we perform validation both before and after the assessment. This article will concentrate on the first type—assessment tool validation.

Defining 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 article will focus on assessment tool validation.

How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

With a clear understanding of the two types of validation, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.

Optimal Timing for Assessment Tool Validation

Assessment tool validation aims to verify that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are covered by your assessment tools.

Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation should be carried out before students use them.

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.

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

- resources are updated
- new training products are added on scope
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- learning resources are 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.

Training Products to Validate

Remember, this type of validation is to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs should validate all unit resources.

Necessary Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Training Materials

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 as an assessment tool. Confirm clear instructions and adequate answer fields. This is a common problem.

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

Other related resources – may consist of checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Validation Team

Clause 1.11 details the requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be conducted by one or more people. Generally, RTOs require participation from all trainers and assessors and may include industry experts.

Collectively, your validation panel should have:

Vocational competencies and current industry skills relevant to the unit being validated

Recent knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an equivalent successor

Assessment 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.
Using a validation tool is advantageous for both the validation process and documentation. It aids in viewing 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 accessible online. These tools typically have validators examine the tools in their entirety to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.

Assessment Principles Checklist 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 Directions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Examine?

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 Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?

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

Validity – Does the assessment test what it is meant to test? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?

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

Basic Rules of Evidence

Validity – Does the evidence demonstrate 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 adequate evidence to ensure 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 reflective of current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?

Despite these being frequently addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, heaps of tools still have problems with these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that overlook some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:

Live Up to Your Words

Take note of the verbs used in the unit requirements and make sure they are addressed by the assessment item. For example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement asks students to:

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

diaper changing

bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment

prepare solids and feed infants

respond suitably to baby signs and cues

prepare infants for sleep and soothe them

monitor and encourage physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable 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.

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 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.

All or Nothing

Pay attention to lists. Again, as illustrated above, 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?
Provide More Detail

Every assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Consequently, ensure your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What information might be included in a work package?

Answers may include:

Necessary materials

Relevant expenses

Activity length

Designated roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item calls for several answers, indicate the number of answers required from a student. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected 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:

Identify a hazard and/or environmental concern in the work area and select 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, use of engineering controls

People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to judge 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.