All About Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments
All About Assessment Validation and 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.
Although we've written about validation many times, let’s redefine it. ASQA refers to validation as a quality review of the assessment process.
Put simply, validation checks which parts of an RTO's assessment process are accurate and spots areas for enhancement. A proper understanding of its main elements can make validation less daunting.
According to Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the training package requirements and are conducted according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
We must adhere to the standards by conducting two types of validation.
The initial validation type checks that your RTO's assessments align with the training package requirements.
The second validation ensures assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
It suggests that validation takes place before and after the assessment. This article focuses on the first type—assessment tool validation.
A Look at the Two Types of Assessment Validation
What Does Assessment Validation Mean?
As discussed earlier and in our prior blogs, validation involves two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Assessment tool validation, known as pre-assessment validation, pertains to the first part of the clause, focusing on meeting all unit requirements and ensuring total workbook compliance.
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 piece will highlight assessment tool validation.
Steps to Perform Assessment Tool Validation
Having distinguished between the two types of validation, let’s dive into the details of assessment tool validation.
When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done
Assessment tool validation seeks to ensure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them.
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.
Still, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- you update resources
- new training products are added to your scope
- your course gets reviewed against training product updates
- you identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority employs a risk-based approach for regulating RTOs and expects regular risk assessments. Therefore, student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.
What Training Products Need Validation?
Recall, this type of validation aims to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs must validate each unit's resources.
Resources Required for Assessment Tool Validation
Teaching Materials
Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire 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 – 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 – such as checklists, registers, and templates created independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they are suitable for the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Assessment Validation Team
Clause 1.11 specifies the requirements for validation panel members. It states validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Collectively, your validation panel should have:
Relevant vocational competencies and up-to-date industry skills for the unit being validated
Current expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Either of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the 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.
Having a validation tool supports the validation process and documentation. It simplifies understanding how each assessment item maps 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.
Additionally, it can act as evidence that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.
While ASQA does not have a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, many templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to review the tools as a whole to see if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Guide 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 strongly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to them. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Checking?
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 Core Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunity and access ensured for everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Are multiple options available in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different 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 produce the same results each time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions on skill competence?
Evidence Key Rules
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 there sufficient 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 avoid using learning resources that leave certain unit requirements unaddressed, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:
Demonstrate What You Teach
Pay 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:
change diapers
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment
prepare solid food and feed babies
respond appropriately to baby signs and cues
prepare babies for sleep and soothe them
monitor and encourage suitable physical exploration and gross motor skills for the age
Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly meet the unit requirement. Unless the unit requirement is meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Heed 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 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?
Give More Specificity
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 can be included in a work package?
The answer could include:
Obligatory resources
Pertinent costs
Time span of activities
Allocated roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item calls for several answers, specify the number of answers needed from a student. 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. website These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental concern in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers can include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering controls
People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering
Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Seeing these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees mean you must wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.