What is Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments

What is Assessment Validation: How 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.

Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

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.

Clause 1.8 of the 2015 SRTOs indicates that RTOs need to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted in accordance with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards necessitate conducting two types of validation.

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

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

Thus, we understand that validation is done before and after the assessment. This article highlights the first type: assessment tool validation.

Exploring the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Comprehending Assessment Validation

As noted earlier and in our earlier blog entries, validation is split into two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, emphasizing the need to meet all unit requirements and ensuring all workbooks are 100% compliant.

On the other hand, post-assessment validation deals with implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.

How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

Having distinguished between the two types of validation, let’s dive into the details of assessment tool validation.

When Should You Conduct Assessment Tool Validation?

The objective of assessment tool validation is to ensure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed 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 your next 5-year validation schedule. 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 are updated
- you add new training products on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- you 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.

Choosing 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.

Necessary Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Educational Resources

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

Mapping tool – the first document to review. It indicates which assessment items meet unit requirements, aiding in faster validation.

Learner/student workbook – during validation, check if it's suitable as an assessment tool. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common gap.

Assessor guide/marking guide – ensure that instructions for assessors are sufficient and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are essential for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – may consist of checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Team for Validation

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.

Collectively, your validation panel should have:

Relevant vocational competencies and industry skills for the unit being validated

Current expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

One of the following training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its future 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.
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.
Additionally, it can act as evidence that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.

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

While these templates simplify the validation process, they can introduce judgment errors because there is insufficient space for comments on each assessment item.

It is highly advisable to use a more detailed template for evaluating each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Directions Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Inspected?

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.

Fundamental Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Is the assessment process equitable and accessible to everyone?

Flexibility – Are various options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based more info on different needs and preferences?

Validity – Is the assessment measuring what it is supposed to measure? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment yield consistent results each time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Basic Rules of Evidence

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

Authenticity – Is the assessment tool proving 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 frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still have issues with these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that overlook some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:

Practice Your Teachings

Focus on the verbs used in the unit requirements and make sure they are addressed by the assessment item. For instance, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement asks students to:

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

change nappies

prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment

solid food preparation and feeding babies

respond to baby signs and cues appropriately

settle babies for sleep and prepare them

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

Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months doesn’t fulfill the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing 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.
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 suffice.

All or No Competence

Observe the lists. As mentioned above, 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?
Can You Be More Specific?

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

Possible answers could include:

Obligatory resources

Appropriate costs

Activity duration

Allocated 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.

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:

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 – work area isolation, engineering, PPE

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

People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administration

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and enables assessors to accurately judge competence.

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.