Insights and Tips for Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments

Insights and Tips for 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.

Though we've written extensively on validation, let's clarify it again. ASQA describes it as a quality assessment review.

In essence, validation confirms which parts of an RTO's assessment process are correct and pinpoints elements for improvement. With a solid grasp of its key components, validation becomes manageable.

The SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8 specifies that RTOs need to ensure compliance of their assessment systems, including RPL, with training package requirements, following the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

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

The initial assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements.

The following validation type ensures that assessments follow 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

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.

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.

In post-assessment validation, the emphasis is on implementation, ensuring that Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments as per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.

How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

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

When Should You Conduct Assessment Tool Validation?

The purpose of assessment tool validation is 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, assessment tool validation should be conducted before students use them.

You don’t need to wait until the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.

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

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

The risk-based regulatory approach of ASQA requires RTOs to perform regular risk assessments. Student complaints about learning resources indicate it's time for assessment tool validation.

Training Products to Validate

Keep in mind, this validation ensures that all learning resources comply before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.

What You Need for Assessment Tool Validation

Learning Materials

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

Mapping tool – the primary document to check. It reveals which assessment items align with unit requirements, expediting 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 – ensure sufficient instructions for assessors and clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are vital for 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.

Panel for Validation

Clause 1.11 sets out the requirements for validation panel members, stating that validation can be conducted by one or more individuals. RTOs generally require all trainers and assessors to be involved, sometimes including industry experts.

As a group, your validation panel must possess:

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

Current expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

One of these training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its replacement

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.
Having a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It makes it simpler to see how each assessment item aligns with read more 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.
Simultaneously, it can serve as proof that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.

ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are available online. These tools generally have validators review the tools as a whole to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.

Assessment Principles Template 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 highly advisable to use a more detailed template for evaluating 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 Needs Inspection?

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

Core Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access ensured in the assessment process?

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

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

Reliability – Will the assessment give the same results every time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision 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 adequate 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 aligned with current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?

Even though these are regularly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.

To avoid using learning resources that do not address all unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:

Show What You Mean

Take note of the verbs used in the unit requirements and make sure they are addressed by the assessment item. For instance, 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:

change diapers

bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment

prepare solid foods and feed infants

respond suitably to infant signs and cues

prepare and settle babies for rest

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

Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months doesn’t fulfill the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.

Be Cautious with 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 No Competence

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 More Specific

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

Possible answers include:

Necessary materials

Pertinent costs

Time allocated for activities

Assigned functions 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 those requiring multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:

Name a hazard and/or environmental concern in the work area 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, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls

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

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.