Decoding Assessment Validation: Guide to Validating Assessments
Decoding Assessment Validation: Guide to Validating Assessments
Blog Article
Post-registration, RTOs are tasked with many responsibilities including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, and validation is often the most challenging.
Although our articles cover validation extensively, let’s redefine it. According to ASQA, validation is a quality review of the assessment process.
Validation involves verifying which areas of an RTO's assessment process are correct and highlighting where improvements are needed. Understanding its key components makes the task less intimidating.
Clause 1.8 in the SRTOs 2015 outlines that RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards mandate two types of validation.
The primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.
The subsequent validation type ensures assessments are in line with the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
Thus, validation is performed both prior to and following the assessment. The first type, assessment tool validation, is the focus here.
Exploring the Two Types of Assessment Validation
The Meaning of Assessment Validation
As discussed before and in previous blogs, validation includes two processes: (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.
On the other hand, post-assessment validation deals with implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.
How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Having discussed the two types of validation, let’s delve into assessment tool validation.
Ideal Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
The purpose of assessment tool validation is to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.
This implies that any time new learning resources are obtained, assessment tool validation must be done before 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.
However, this isn't the only instance to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- when resources are updated
- new training products are added to your scope
- review your course against training product updates
- identifying your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach to regulation means RTOs must conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources signal the need for assessment tool validation.
What Training Products Need Validation?
Do not forget, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Key Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Academic Resources
As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – this should be the first document to examine. It shows which assessment items correspond to unit requirements, facilitating quicker 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 – check that instructions for assessors are adequate and that there are clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are essential for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – these could be checklists, registers, and templates created separately 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 requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be done by one or more people. Typically, RTOs require all trainers and assessors to attend and may invite industry experts.
Your validation panel, as a group, must possess:
Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to the unit being validated
Up-to-date knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning
Either one of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the successor version
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.
A validation tool assists with the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to view 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.
It serves as documentation that you have validated your resources prior to student use.
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 Checklist Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While these templates facilitate the validation process, they can result in judgment errors due to the 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 Guidelines Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?
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.
Core Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment process ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?
Flexibility – Does the assessment accommodate different options to demonstrate competence according to various 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 every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Evidence Key Rules
Validity – Does the evidence confirm 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 enough 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 – 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 prevent using learning resources that do not meet some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:
Show What You Mean
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:
Perform 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:
nappying
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
prepare solid food and feed babies
appropriately respond to baby signs and cues
prepare infants for sleep and settle them
monitor and promote age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Getting students to describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Be Mindful of 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 the 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 doesn’t meet the requirement.
All or Nothing
Pay attention to lists. As mentioned earlier, if students perform only half the tasks listed, it’s non-compliant. Each assessment item here must address all requirements, or the student is not yet competent and the assessment tool is non-compliant.
Can you be more specific?
Could You 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 kinds of information can be included in a work package?
Answers might include:
Essential resources
Appropriate costs
Time span of activities
Appointed 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 applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those requiring multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers 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 controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to judge competence accurately.
Given these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees require waiting for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.