An Expert Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments

An Expert Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments

Blog Article

With registration, RTOs must juggle many responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, where validation often causes the most anxiety.

While we've discussed validation in multiple articles, let's return to the basics. ASQA defines validation as a quality check 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.

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 necessitate conducting two types of validation.

The initial validation type checks that your RTO's assessments align with the training package requirements.

The subsequent validation confirms that assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

It indicates that validation occurs both before and after the assessment. The focus here is on the first type: assessment tool validation.

Understanding the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Defining Assessment Validation

As noted earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is divided 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.

In contrast, post-assessment validation focuses on the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

For this piece, our emphasis will be on assessment tool validation.

Steps for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Now that we understand the two types of validation, let’s explore the details of assessment tool validation.

When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done

The aim of assessment tool validation is to ensure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are covered by your assessment tools.

Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.

You don’t need to wait until the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.

Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:

- resources get updated
- your new training products get added on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- your learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment

The Australian Skills Quality Authority employs a risk-based approach for regulating RTOs and expects regular risk assessments. Therefore, student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.

Which Training Products to Validate?

Bear in mind, this validation aims to ensure compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs are required to validate all unit resources.

Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need

Educational Resources

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

Mapping tool – start with this document. It illustrates which assessment items address unit requirements, making validation quicker.

Learner/student workbook – ensure it's appropriate for use as an assessment tool. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a frequent gap.

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 – 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.

Validation Team

Clause 1.11 specifies the requirements for validation panel members. It states validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.

In total, your validation panel must have:

Vocational competencies and current industry skills relevant to the unit being validated

Recent knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its 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.
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.

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

Assessment Principles Form 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.

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 Directions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Review?

As highlighted in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it is essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment process provide equal opportunity and access to everyone?

Flexibility – Does the assessment offer multiple ways to show 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 yield the same results each time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions on skill competence?

Key Rules of Evidence

Validity – Does the evidence indicate that the candidate possesses 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 confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool ensure that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Are the assessment tools reflective of 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 prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:

Act on Your Words

Take note of 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 asks students to:

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

nappying

bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment

prepare solid foods and feed infants

appropriately respond to baby signs and cues

settle infants for sleep and prepare them

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.

Pay Attention to 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.
Mind 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.

Complete or Not Competent

Mind the lists. In the previous example, if students 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?
Provide More Detail

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 can be included in a work package?

The answer might include:

Mandatory resources

Corresponding costs

Time span 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.

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 concern in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Possible answers could include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering, PPE

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

People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

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

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students here to respond and for assessors to accurately judge competence.

Given these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But these guarantees require waiting for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.