Assessment Validation Unpacked: Guide to Validating Assessments
Assessment Validation Unpacked: 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.
Despite our extensive coverage on validation, let's re-examine the term. ASQA states that validation is a quality check of the assessment process.
Validation involves verifying which areas of an RTO's assessment process are correct and highlighting where improvements are needed. Understanding its key components makes the task 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.
The standards mandate two types of validation.
The initial type of assessment validation ensures compliance with the training package assessment requirements within your RTO's scope.
The next validation type confirms assessments are conducted following 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
Assessment Validation: An Explanation
As discussed before and in previous blogs, validation includes two processes: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Assessment tool validation, also known as pre-assessment validation or verification, pertains to the first part of the clause, focusing on ensuring all unit requirements are met and that all workbooks are fully 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.
This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.
Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Now that we’ve differentiated the two types of validation, let’s examine assessment tool validation in detail.
When is Assessment Tool Validation Conducted?
Assessment tool validation seeks to ensure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation should be carried out before students use them.
You don't have to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources as soon as you get them to ensure they’re suitable for students.
Still, this isn't the sole reason for conducting this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- resources are updated by you
- new training products are added on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- you identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach to regulation means RTOs must conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources signal the need for assessment tool validation.
How to Choose Training Products for Validation
Bear in mind, this validation aims to ensure compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs are required to validate all unit resources.
What Do You Need for Assessment Tool Validation?
Study Resources
Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – this should be the first document to examine. It shows which assessment items correspond to unit requirements, facilitating quicker validation.
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 – verify that instructions for assessors are comprehensive and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are present. Clear benchmarks are key to reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – these could be checklists, registers, and templates created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.
Panel for Validation
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 industry skills applicable to the unit being validated
Current expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of these training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the successor version
Assessment validation form/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.
Simultaneously, it provides documentation that you have validated your resources before students use them.
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.
Assessment Principles Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Although such templates ease validation, they can cause judgment errors since there’s minimal space for comments 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 Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?
As noted 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 – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone 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 assessing what it is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for evaluating 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?
Basic 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 ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Does the assessment tool verify that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Do the assessment tools correspond to current units of competency and industry practices?
Despite being regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still have issues with these requirements.
To avoid using learning resources that leave certain unit requirements unaddressed, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:
Live Up to Your Words
Observe 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 asks students to:
Complete each of the following actions at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication as per service and regulatory requirements:
diaper changing
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
prepare solids and feed babies
appropriately respond to baby signs and cues
prepare infants for sleep and soothe them
monitor and support age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly address the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Keep an Eye on 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 or Not Competent
Observe the lists. As noted above, if students are asked website to perform just 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 Clearer?
Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important that your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
The answer may include:
Compulsory resources
Appropriate costs
Time assigned for activities
Appointed 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 is true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those asking for multiple answers at once. Such questions can confuse both 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.
Possible answers include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolation of work area, engineering, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolating, engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, use of engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge 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.