How to Understand Assessment Validation and Validate Assessments

How to Understand Assessment Validation and Validate Assessments

Blog Article

Once RTOs receive registration, they must oversee many aspects such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance. Of all these duties, validation is frequently the most daunting.

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

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 in the SRTOs 2015 outlines that RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

We are required by the standards to carry out two types of validation.

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

The second kind of validation ensures assessments are carried out in accordance with 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

Decoding Assessment Validation

As discussed before and in previous blogs, validation includes two processes: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Assessment tool validation, often referred to as pre-assessment validation or verification, deals with ensuring all unit requirements are addressed as per the first part of the clause, ensuring complete workbook compliance.

On the other side, post-assessment validation pertains to the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

Here, we will concentrate on assessment tool validation.

Steps to Perform Assessment Tool Validation

Having discussed the two types of validation, let’s delve into assessment tool validation.

Best Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

Assessment tool validation seeks to ensure 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 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.

Nevertheless, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:

- when resources are updated
- your scope includes new training products
- your course includes training product updates
- when learning resources are identified 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.

What Training Products Should Be Validated?

Bear in mind, this validation is meant to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs are required to validate all unit resources.

Assessment Tool Validation: Required Resources

Teaching Materials

As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set 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 – ensure it's appropriate for use as an assessment tool. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a frequent gap.

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 – may include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate these to ensure they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Validation Committee

Clause 1.11 outlines the criteria for validation panel members, specifying that validation can be done by one or more people. RTOs typically require all trainers and assessors to participate, occasionally inviting industry experts.

Your validation panel, as a group, must possess:

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

Current knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning

One of these training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its updated 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.
Using a validation tool benefits both the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to comprehend how each assessment item aligns with 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 serves as documentation that you have validated your resources prior to student use.

While ASQA does not recommend or require a specific template for assessment tool validation, numerous templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to examine the tools as a whole to see if they meet the principles of assessment.

Principles of Assessment Checklist 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.

It is advisable to use a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Examine?

As we explained in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s vital that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Basic Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment provide equal opportunity and access to all participants?

Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?

Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is supposed to assess? Is it a valid tool for measuring 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 Basic 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 the evidence sufficient 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 – Are the assessment tools in line with current units of competency and contemporary 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:

Be Consistent with Your Teachings

Focus on 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 asks students to:

Complete 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:

diapering

bottle preparation, feeding infants from bottles, and cleaning equipment

solid food prep and feeding infants

respond properly to infant signs and cues

settle infants for sleep and prepare them

monitor and support age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills

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 click here underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out the tasks.

Mind 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.
Pay attention to 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 isn’t enough.

All or Nothing

Pay attention to lists. As mentioned earlier, 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 Clearer

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

Answers can include:

Necessary materials

Associated costs

Activity length

Allocated roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item requires multiple answers, indicate the number of answers needed from a student. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected 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:

Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Possible answers may include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, engineering

People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering

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

Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.

Seeing these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But such guarantees mean you must wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.