An Expert Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments

An Expert Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments

Blog Article

Registration brings RTOs many duties like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, yet validation often proves to be the most feared.

Although we've written about validation many times, let’s redefine it. ASQA refers to validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

Essentially, validation is about identifying which parts of an RTO's assessment process are effective and which need improvement. With a proper grasp of its key aspects, validation becomes less daunting.

Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015 mandates that RTOs ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards require RTOs to perform two types of validation.

The first kind of assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessment adheres to the training package requirements within your scope.

The second validation type ensures that assessments adhere 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.

An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Exploring the Concept of Assessment Validation

As noted earlier and in our earlier blog entries, validation is split into two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Pre-assessment validation or assessment tool validation focuses on the first part of the clause, ensuring that all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are entirely compliant.

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.

In this write-up, we will focus 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 Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done

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.

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 your resources
- when new training products are added on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- identify your learning resources 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.

Identifying Training Products for Validation

Remember, this type of validation is to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs should validate all unit resources.

Resources Required for Assessment Tool Validation

Instructional Resources

Given that you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the full array 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 – also verify if instructions for assessors are sufficient and if clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are crucial 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 of Validators

Clause 1.11 details the requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be conducted by one or more people. Generally, RTOs require participation from all trainers and assessors and may include industry experts.

The members of your validation panel must collectively have:

Vocational competencies and 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 equivalent

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 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.
It also serves as evidence that you have validated your resources before students use them.

ASQA does not specify a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools in their entirety to ensure they meet the principles of assessment.

Principles of Assessment Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

While such templates facilitate validation, they often result in judgment errors because there’s insufficient 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 Directions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Inspected?

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

Essential Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access guaranteed for everyone in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Does the assessment provide multiple options to show competence according to various 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 yield the same results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Evidence Core Rules

Validity – Is the evidence demonstrating 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 confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Is the assessment tool ensuring that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Are the assessment tools reflective of current units of competency and contemporary industry get more info practices?

Even though these are often covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle with these requirements.

To prevent employing learning resources that miss some unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Practice Your Teachings

Focus on the verbs used in the unit requirements and make sure they are addressed by the assessment item. For example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires students to:

Perform 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:

nappy change

prepare bottle, bottle feed babies and clean equipment

solid food prep and feeding infants

respond to baby signs and cues appropriately

settle babies for sleep and prepare them

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

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.

Plurals Matter!
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 requires 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.

Full Compliance or Not Competent

Observe the 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?
Provide More Detail

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

Possible answers may include:

Mandatory resources

Related costs

Time allocated for activities

Assigned functions and responsibilities

If an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers are needed from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence obtained is valid.

The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those asking for multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse both students and assessors, as shown 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, isolating, engineering controls

People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering, administration

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

Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to judge competence accurately.

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