Important Aspects of Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments

Important Aspects of Assessment Validation: How to Validate 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.

We've covered validation in many articles, but it's worth re-examining. ASQA defines it as a quality review of the assessment procedure.

Validation is the process of confirming accurate areas in an RTO's assessment process and pinpointing elements for improvement. With a correct understanding of its components, it’s less daunting.

As per Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs are required to ensure that their assessment systems, including RPL, meet training package requirements and are conducted following the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards require RTOs to perform two types of validation.

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

The second validation type ensures that assessments adhere to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

This shows that validation happens pre- and post-assessment. We will focus on the first type—assessment tool validation.

Breaking Down the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Fundamentals of Assessment Validation

As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is split into two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Assessment tool validation, also called pre-assessment validation, pertains to ensuring all unit requirements are addressed, as outlined in the first part of the clause, ensuring total workbook compliance.

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.

Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.

Steps for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.

Timing for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.

This means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, assessment tool validation must be performed before they are used by students.

You don't have to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Validate new resources right away to ensure they’re appropriate for student use.

Nonetheless, there are other reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:

- resources are updated by you
- add new training products on scope
- course is reviewed by you against training product updates
- your risk assessment includes identifying your learning resources as a risk

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.

How to Choose Training Products for Validation

Do not forget, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.

Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation

Course Materials

As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – start by investigating this document. It shows which assessment items meet unit requirements, facilitating quicker 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 – 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 – 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.

Validation Team

Clause 1.11 outlines the requirements for validation panel members, indicating validation can be done by one or more individuals. Typically, RTOs require all trainers and assessors to attend, occasionally inviting industry experts.

Your validation panel must, as a group, possess:

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

Up-to-date knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning

Any one of these training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its successor

Validation document/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.
Additionally, it can act as evidence 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 accessible online. These tools typically have validators examine the tools in their entirety to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.

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

While templates like these make validation easier, they also allow for judgment errors since there is little room for commenting on each assessment item.

We recommend using a more detailed template to examine each unit requirement and the assessment items that correspond to them. Here is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Checked?

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

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

Flexibility – Does the assessment provide different options to demonstrate competence according to individual 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 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 – Is the assessment tool verifying 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 employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to adhere to these guidelines:

Practice What You Preach

Pay close attention to 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 requires students to:

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

change nappies

prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment

prepare solid food and feed babies

respond to baby signs and cues suitably

prepare infants for sleep and soothe them

monitor and foster 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 underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out 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.

Full Compliance or Not Competent

Pay attention to 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?
Can You Clarify Further?

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

Possible answers include:

Needed materials

Pertinent costs

Length of activities

Designated 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.

This is also true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that require multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated 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 – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment

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

People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administration

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