How to Understand Assessment Validation and Validate Assessments

How to Understand Assessment Validation and Validate Assessments

Blog Article

With registration, RTOs must juggle many responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, where validation often causes the most anxiety.

While we've discussed validation in multiple articles, let's return to the basics. ASQA defines validation as a quality check 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.

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

We must adhere to the standards by conducting two types of validation.

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.

Thus, validation is performed both prior to and following the assessment. The first type, assessment tool validation, is the focus here.

Breaking Down the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Meaning of Assessment Validation

As discussed earlier and in our prior blogs, validation involves two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Assessment tool validation, also called pre-assessment validation, pertains to ensuring all unit requirements are addressed, as outlined in the first part of the clause, 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.

Our focus in this article will be on assessment tool validation.

How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

After reviewing the two types of validation, let’s explore the specifics of assessment tool validation.

Timing for Conducting 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, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.

No need to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they’re suitable for students.

However, there are additional reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation also when you:

- your resources get updated
- new training products get added on scope
- review your course against training product updates
- learning resources are identified by you as a risk during your risk assessment

The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach means RTOs should carry out regular risk assessments. If students complain about learning resources, it's an ideal time for assessment tool validation.

Identifying Training Products for Validation

It's important to remember this validation ensures that all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs need to validate resources for each unit.

Getting Started with Assessment Tool Validation: Resources Needed

Course Materials

As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – start by investigating this document. It shows which assessment items meet unit requirements, facilitating quicker validation.

Learner/student workbook – check its suitability as an assessment tool during validation. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.

Assessor guide/marking guide – ensure that instructions for assessors are sufficient and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are essential for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – these might include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Ensure they are appropriate for the assessment task and meet unit requirements.

Panel for Validation

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.

Your validation panel, as a group, must possess:

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

Current knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its future more info version

Assessment validation instrument/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 specify a required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools as a whole to ensure they meet the principles of assessment.

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

Though these templates make validation easier, they often result in judgment errors due to 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 Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Examine?

As we covered in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Essential Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment process ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?

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

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

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

Evidence Core Rules

Validity – Is the evidence verifying 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 sufficient evidence to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

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

Currency – Do the assessment tools correspond to current units of competency and industry practices?

Although these are often addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.

To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Show What You Mean

Pay attention to 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 asks students to:

Perform 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:

nappy change

bottle preparation, feeding babies from bottles, and cleaning equipment

prepare solids and feed babies

respond to baby signs and cues suitably

settle babies for sleep and prepare them

monitor and encourage physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable 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.

Notice 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 doesn’t suffice.

All or No Competence

Mind the lists. In the previous example, 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 details can be included in a work package?

The answer could include:

Required materials

Related costs

Duration of activities

Appointed roles 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.

The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that ask for more than one answer simultaneously. These can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:

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

Answers could include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, personal protective equipment

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

People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administrative controls

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administrative controls

Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows 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.