Assessment Validation 101: Guide to Validating Assessments
Assessment Validation 101: Guide to Validating Assessments
Blog Article
RTOs face many tasks after registration, such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, but validation is typically the most daunting.
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 is essentially about verifying the accuracy of parts of an RTO's assessment process and spotting areas needing improvement. Understanding its key components can make it less daunting.
Clause 1.8 of the 2015 SRTOs indicates that RTOs need to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted in accordance with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards mandate two types of validation.
The first validation type ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements in your scope.
The next validation type confirms assessments are conducted following the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This indicates validation occurs before and after the assessment process. We will focus on the first type: assessment tool validation.
Defining the Two Types of Assessment Validation
An Introduction to Assessment Validation
As noted earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is divided into two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Pre-assessment validation, also referred to as assessment tool validation, is related to the first part of the clause, ensuring all unit requirements are addressed and workbooks are entirely compliant.
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.
We will dedicate this article to assessment tool validation.
How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Now that we’ve differentiated the two types of validation, let’s examine assessment tool validation in detail.
Best Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
The goal of assessment tool validation is to make sure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
This implies that any time new learning resources are obtained, assessment tool validation must be done before student use.
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.
Still, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- updating your resources
- you add new training products on scope
- course is reviewed by you against training product updates
- learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA's risk-based regulation approach requires RTOs to conduct regular risk assessments. Therefore, complaints from students about learning resources are a perfect time for assessment tool validation.
Choosing 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.
What Do You Need for Assessment Tool Validation?
Learning Resources
Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document to check. It indicates which assessment items align with unit requirements, making validation faster.
Learner/student workbook – validate its suitability as an assessment tool. Confirm that instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common problem.
Assessor guide/marking guide – ensure that instructions for assessors are sufficient and clear benchmarks for each assessment item exist. Clear benchmarks are essential 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.
Team for Validation
Clause 1.11 describes the requirements for validation panel members, indicating that validation can be performed by one or more persons. RTOs often require all trainers and assessors to attend, and sometimes industry experts are invited.
As a whole, your validation panel must have:
Relevant vocational competencies and up-to-date industry skills for the unit being validated
Recent expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
One of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an 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.
Using a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It facilitates seeing 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.
Additionally, it can provide proof 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 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.
We recommend a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that correspond to them. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Inspection?
As discussed in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Are different options available in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on individual 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 yield the same results each time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions on skill competence?
Evidence Rules
Validity – Does the evidence indicate that the candidate possesses 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 – Does the assessment tool prove that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Do the assessment tools reflect current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Although these are commonly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, a lot of tools still fail to meet these requirements.
To avoid using learning resources that do not address all unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Practice Your Teachings
Pay close attention to 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 requires students to:
Carry out 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 in accordance with service and regulatory requirements:
nappy change
prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment
solid food preparation and feeding babies
respond to baby signs and cues suitably
prepare babies for sleep and soothe them
monitor and promote 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.
Pay Attention to 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.
Complete Compliance or Not Competent
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?
Add More Specificity
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 sort of information can be included in a work package?
The answer might include:
Compulsory resources
Appropriate costs
Length of activities
Allocated roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected 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:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolation of the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering controls
People – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, use of engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for read more students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Given these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But these guarantees require waiting for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.