Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

Among the numerous obligations RTOs face post-registration—annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, marketing compliance—validation is often the most dreaded.

Though we've written extensively on validation, let's clarify it again. ASQA describes it as a quality assessment review.

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.

The 2015 SRTOs Clause 1.8 requires RTOs to make sure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards necessitate conducting two types of validation.

The first validation type ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements in your scope.

The second validation ensures assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

This means we validate assessments both before and after they are conducted. This article will cover the first type—assessment tool validation.

An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Essence of Assessment Validation

As previously discussed in our blogs, validation involves two processes: (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.

On the implementation side, post-assessment validation ensures Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This article will focus on assessment tool validation.

How Assessment Tool Validation is Conducted

Understanding the two types of validation allows us to delve into the specifics of assessment tool validation.

Timing of Assessment Tool Validation

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.

Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, assessment tool validation should be conducted before students use them.

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.

However, this isn't the only time to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:

- resources are updated by you
- when new training products are added on scope
- when course is reviewed against training product updates
- 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.

What Training Products Should Be Validated?

Remember, this validation aims to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs are expected to validate all unit resources.

Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation

Educational Resources

For validation of your assessment tools, you will require the full set 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 – ensure it's appropriate as an assessment tool. Check if the instructions are clear and answer fields are adequate. This is a frequent issue.

Assessor guide/marking guide – also verify if instructions for assessors are sufficient and if clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – may consist of checklists, registers, and templates created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they are appropriate for the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Assessment 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.

Your validation panel must, as a group, possess:

Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to the unit being validated

Current knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning

One of these training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the successor version

Assessment validation checklist/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.
A validation tool assists in both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies identifying how each assessment item corresponds 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 provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are available online. These tools generally have validators review the tools as a whole to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.

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

Though these templates make validation easier, they often result in judgment errors due to limited space for comments 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 Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Inspect?

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

Assessment Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunity and access ensured for everyone in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Are different options available in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on individual needs and preferences?

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

Reliability – Will the assessment achieve consistent results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?

Essential 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 the evidence sufficient to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

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

Currency – Are the assessment tools based on current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?

Despite being regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still have issues with these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that do not address some unit requirements, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:

Practice Your Teachings

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

change nappies

prepare bottle, bottle feed babies and clean equipment

prepare solid food and feed babies

respond to baby signs and cues appropriately

prepare and settle babies for sleep

monitor and promote 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.

Be Cautious with 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.
Notice the numbers. In our 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 is not sufficient.

All or Nothing

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?
Add More Specificity

Every assessment item must include clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Consequently, ensure your instructions are clear and not confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What details can be included in a work package?

The answer might include:

Needed resources

Applicable expenses

Length of activities

Allocated duties and responsibilities

If an assessment item calls for several answers, specify the number of answers needed from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered 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:

Name a hazard and/or environmental concern in the workplace and choose 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 – elimination, isolating, engineering controls

People – isolating, engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administration

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it 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.