Assessment Validation: Tips and Insights on How to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: Tips and Insights on How to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

RTOs must handle various tasks post-registration, such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, but validation usually presents the biggest challenge.

Although we've written about validation many times, let’s redefine it. ASQA refers to validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

Simply put, validation confirms which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are right and identifies where improvements are needed. A clear understanding of its main 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.

According to the standards, two types of validation are necessary.

The first validation type ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements in your scope.

The next validation ensures that assessments are conducted per 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.

The Fundamentals of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Assessment Validation: An Explanation

As discussed before and in previous blogs, validation includes two processes: (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 hand, post-assessment validation deals with implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.

How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on 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.

This implies that any time you get new learning resources, assessment tool validation must be done before they are used by students.

You don’t have to wait for the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources right away to ensure they are ready for students.

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

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

What Training Products Need Validation?

Do not forget, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.

What You Need for Assessment Tool Validation

Teaching Materials

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

Mapping tool – the first document you should look at. It highlights which assessment items meet unit requirements, accelerating validation.

Learner/student workbook – ensure it's appropriate for use as an assessment tool. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a frequent 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 – such as checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Ensure they are suitable for the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Validation Panel

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.

Your validation panel, as a group, must possess:

Vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated

Recent knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an equivalent successor

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 with the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to view 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 can also serve as proof that you have validated your resources before allowing students to use them.

While ASQA does not recommend or require a specific template for assessment tool validation, numerous templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to examine the tools as a whole to see if they meet the principles of assessment.

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

While templates like these make validation easier, they also allow for judgment errors since there is little room for commenting 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 Assessment Directions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Checking?

As outlined in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Key Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment provide equal opportunity and access to all participants?

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

Validity – Does the assessment evaluate what it is intended to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for assessing 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?

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 enough 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?

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

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

Act on Your Words

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:

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:

diapering

bottle preparation, feeding infants from bottles, and cleaning equipment

prepare solid food and feed infants

respond suitably to infant signs and cues

settle infants for sleep and prepare them

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 doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.

Pay Attention to check here 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.

Complete Compliance or Not Competent

Observe the 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

Every assessment item must have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, make sure 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?

The answer can include:

Compulsory resources

Relevant costs

Duration of activities

Designated duties 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 issue in the work area and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Answers may include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering

People – isolating, engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, use of engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.

Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” But these guarantees mean you have to wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.