Decoding Assessment Validation: Guide to Validating Assessments
Decoding Assessment Validation: Guide to Validating Assessments
Blog Article
RTOs have numerous responsibilities post-registration, including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and ensuring marketing compliance. Among these tasks, validation often stands out as particularly challenging.
Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes 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.
According to SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8, RTOs must ensure that their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
According to the standards, two types of validation must be conducted.
The primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.
The next validation ensures that assessments are conducted per the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This implies that we validate both prior to and following the assessment. The focus of this article is on the first type: assessment tool validation.
An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Defining Assessment Validation
As noted earlier and in previous blog posts, validation comprises two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Pre-assessment validation or verification, also known as assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, ensuring all unit requirements are met and workbooks are 100% compliant.
Conversely, post-assessment validation pertains to the implementation, 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.
Methods for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Having reviewed the two types of validation, let’s dive into the specifics of assessment tool validation.
Appropriate Times for 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 means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, you must perform assessment tool validation before student use.
There's no requirement to wait for your next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources promptly to ensure they’re ready for students.
Still, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- update your resources
- new training products are added by you on scope
- course is reviewed by you against training product updates
- you identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA applies a risk-based approach to regulate RTOs, expecting regular risk assessments. Hence, student complaints about learning resources are a good opportunity for assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products to Validate?
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
For validating your assessment tools, 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 – 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 sufficient instructions for assessors and clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are vital for 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 of Validators
Clause 1.11 specifies the criteria for validation panel members, indicating that validation can involve one or more persons. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Together, your validation panel should possess:
Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated
Up-to-date expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the successor version
Validation tool/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 website 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 can serve as proof that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.
Although ASQA does not recommend or require a particular template for assessment tool validation, many templates are available online. These tools typically have validators review the tools in their entirety to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Though these templates simplify validation, they can lead to judgment errors due to limited 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 Guidelines Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Checking?
As mentioned in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s crucial that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Core Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access ensured in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment assess what it is intended 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 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 sufficient to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Does the assessment tool ensure that the work belongs to the candidate?
Currency – Do the assessment tools align with current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?
Although these are frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle to meet these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that do not address some unit requirements, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:
Be Consistent with Your Teachings
Pay close attention to the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the assessment item. For example, 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:
nappy change
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies, and clean equipment
prepare solid foods and feed infants
respond properly to baby signs and cues
prepare and settle babies for rest
monitor and promote physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable for the age
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 underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out 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.
Notice the numbers. In the 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 meet the requirement.
All Requirements 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?
Be More Specific
Every assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Consequently, ensure your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What types of information can be included in a work package?
Possible answers include:
Required materials
Corresponding costs
Time assigned for activities
Allocated duties and responsibilities
If an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify the number of answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.
The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that ask for multiple answers simultaneously. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers could include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolating, engineering controls
People – isolating, engineering, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to judge competence accurately.
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.