All About Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments

All About Assessment Validation and How to Validate 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.

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 involves checking which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are accurate and identifying areas for improvement. With a solid understanding of its components, validation is 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.

We must adhere to the standards by conducting two types of validation.

The first type of validation ensures that your RTO's assessment meets the requirements of the training package within your scope.

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

It suggests that validation takes place before and after the assessment. This article focuses on the first type—assessment tool validation.

The Basics of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Assessment Validation: An Explanation

As previously discussed in our blogs, validation involves 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.

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.

Our focus in this article will be on assessment tool validation.

How Assessment Tool Validation is Conducted

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

Ideal Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

Assessment tool validation aims to verify that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are covered 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.

No need to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they’re suitable for students.

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

- when resources are updated
- add new training products on scope
- your course gets reviewed against training product updates
- identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment

ASQA's risk-based regulation approach requires RTOs to conduct regular risk assessments. Therefore, complaints from students about learning resources are a perfect time for assessment tool validation.

Training Products to Validate

Keep in mind, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.

Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need

Learning 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 for use as an assessment tool. Verify clear instructions and sufficient answer fields. This is often a gap.

Assessor guide/marking guide – verify that instructions for assessors are comprehensive and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are included. Clear benchmarks are key to reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – could include checklists, registers, and templates developed apart from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.

Assessment Validation Panel

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.

In total, your validation panel must have:

Relevant vocational competencies and industry skills for the unit being validated

Current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an equivalent successor

Validation tool/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.
Simultaneously, it provides documentation that you have validated your resources before students use them.

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 Checklist Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

Though these templates simplify validation, they can lead to judgment errors due to limited space for comments on each assessment item.

A more detailed template is highly recommended for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that align with them. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?

As we explained in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s vital that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Basic Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access ensured in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Does the assessment provide multiple options to show competence according to various needs and preferences?

Validity – Is the assessment testing what it is meant to test? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?

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

Evidence Key Rules

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 there sufficient evidence to ensure 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 reflective of current units of competency and contemporary 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 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:

Complete each of 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:

nappy change

prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment

prepare solid foods and feed babies

respond suitably to baby signs and cues

prepare infants for sleep and soothe them

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

Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly meet the unit requirement. Unless the unit requirement is meant to assess underpinning Assessment validation checklist Australia knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.

Keep an Eye on 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.

Total or Not Competent

Observe the lists. As noted above, if students are asked to 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?
Be More Specific

Every assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s 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 information might be included in a work package?

Possible answers include:

Needed materials

Relevant costs

Activity duration

Designated 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 questions that require more than one answer at once. Such questions can confuse both 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.

Possible answers could include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolation of work area, engineering, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolating, engineering controls

People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administrative controls

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.

Seeing these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees mean you must wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.