Key Insights into Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments

Key Insights into Assessment Validation and 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.

We have numerous articles on validation, but let's go back to the term itself. ASQA defines 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.

The SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8 specifies that RTOs need to ensure compliance of their assessment systems, including RPL, with training package requirements, following the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards require RTOs to perform 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.

This indicates validation occurs before and after the assessment process. We will focus on the first type: assessment tool validation.

A Look at the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Understanding 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, is concerned with the first part of the clause, which ensures all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are fully compliant.

Post-assessment validation, by contrast, focuses on implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This article will focus on assessment tool validation.

Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

After reviewing the two types of validation, let’s explore the specifics of assessment tool validation.

When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done

The aim of assessment tool validation is to make sure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are included in your assessment tools.

This implies that any time new learning resources are obtained, assessment tool validation must be done before student use.

There's no requirement to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources promptly to ensure they’re appropriate for students.

Still, this isn't the sole reason for conducting this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:

- update your resources
- new training products are added by you on scope
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- identifying your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment

The risk-based regulatory approach of ASQA requires RTOs to perform regular risk assessments. Student complaints about learning resources indicate it's time for assessment tool validation.

Selecting 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?

Learning Resources

To conduct assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – the primary document to check. It reveals which assessment items align with unit requirements, expediting validation.

Learner/student workbook – ensure it is suitable as an assessment tool during validation. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.

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 – could include checklists, registers, and templates developed apart from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.

Validation Panel

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.

Collectively, your validation panel should have:

Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated

Up-to-date expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an updated successor

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.
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.
At the same time, it acts as documentation that you have validated your resources before allowing 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.

Assessment Principles 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 highly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Here is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Checking?

As outlined in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Key Principles
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access provided to everyone in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various ways to demonstrate competence according to different needs and preferences?

Validity – Does the assessment evaluate what it is meant to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment produce consistent results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Basic Rules of Evidence

Validity – Does the evidence show 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 adequate evidence to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

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

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

Even though these are frequently addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, a lot of tools still fail to meet these requirements.

To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Act on Your Words

Observe 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 requires students to:

Complete each of the following actions at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, click here using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication as per service and regulatory requirements:

change diapers

prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment

prepare solid food and feed babies

respond properly to infant signs and cues

prepare and settle infants for rest

monitor and promote physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable for the age

Getting students to describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.

Notice 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 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.

All Requirements or Not Competent

Observe the lists. As noted above, if students are asked 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?
Be Clearer

Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Hence, 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 information might be included in a work package?

The answer could include:

Compulsory resources

Relevant costs

Activity length

Assigned duties 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 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:

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

Answers could include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering, PPE

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

People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

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

Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows 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.