Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate 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 our articles cover validation extensively, let’s redefine it. According to ASQA, validation is a quality review of the assessment process.

Simply put, validation confirms which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are right and identifies where improvements are needed. A clear understanding of its main components makes it less intimidating.

As stated in Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

According to the standards, RTOs must conduct two types of validation.

The primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.

The second kind of validation ensures assessments are carried out in accordance with the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

This suggests we perform validation both before and after the assessment. This article will concentrate on the first type—assessment tool validation.

What are the Two Types of Assessment Validation?

The Basics of Assessment Validation

As we mentioned earlier and in our past blogs, validation consists of two parts: (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.

In post-assessment validation, the emphasis is on implementation, ensuring that Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments as per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

In this article, we will emphasize assessment tool validation.

Steps for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

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

Optimal Timing 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, 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.

Nevertheless, 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 get added on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- when learning resources are identified 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.

Identifying Training Products for Validation

It's important to remember this validation ensures that all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs need to validate resources for each unit.

Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need

Training Materials

To validate assessment tools, you need the complete suite of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – the initial document to investigate. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, helping speed up 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 – check that there are sufficient instructions for assessors and clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are vital for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – such as checklists, registers, and templates created independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they are suitable for the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Panel of Validators

Clause 1.11 describes the requirements for validation panel members, indicating that validation can be performed by one or more persons. RTOs often require all trainers and assessors to attend, and sometimes industry experts are invited.

As a group, your validation panel must possess:

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

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

One of these training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the equivalent successor

Assessment validation form/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 aids both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies seeing 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.
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 Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

While templates of this kind simplify validation, they can introduce judgment errors due to a lack of space for comments on each assessment item.

It is highly recommended to use a more detailed template for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to them. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Look For?

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.

Assessment Basic Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?

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 produce the same results each time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions on skill competence?

Evidence Basic 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 there sufficient evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

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

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

Despite being frequently 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:

Live Up to Your Words

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:

diaper change

prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment

solid food prep and feeding infants

appropriately respond to baby signs and cues

settle infants for sleep and prepare them

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

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.

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 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 sufficient.

All or No Competence

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?
Add More Specificity

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

Possible answers could include:

Compulsory resources

Relevant costs

Activity duration

Appointed roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item calls for several answers, indicate the number of answers required from a student. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.

This applies equally to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that require more than one answer at the same time. These can confuse students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:

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

Answers might include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, personal protective equipment

Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, use of engineering controls

People – isolation, engineering, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administrative controls

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it read more easier for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.

Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” However, with these guarantees, you must wait for an audit before they help rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it's better to take a safe and compliant approach.