All About Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments
All About Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
Once RTOs receive registration, they must oversee many aspects such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance. Of all these duties, validation is frequently the most daunting.
Although we've written about validation many times, let’s redefine it. ASQA refers to validation as 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.
According to SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8, RTOs must ensure that their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
As per the standards, two kinds of validation are required.
The primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.
The next validation ensures that assessments are conducted per 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.
A Look at the Two Types of Assessment Validation
A Deep Dive into 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 focuses on the first part of the clause, ensuring that all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are entirely compliant.
On the other side, post-assessment validation pertains to the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
For this piece, our emphasis will be on assessment tool validation.
How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Having discussed the two types of validation, let’s delve into assessment tool validation.
Timing of Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation seeks to ensure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them.
There's no requirement to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources promptly to ensure they’re appropriate for students.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- update your resources
- new training products get added on scope
- you review your course against training product updates
- your risk assessment includes identifying your learning resources as a risk
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.
Determining Training Products for Validation
It's crucial to remember this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs should validate resources for each unit.
Getting Started with Assessment Tool Validation: Resources Needed
Educational Resources
Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite 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 – ensure it is suitable as an assessment tool during validation. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.
Assessor guide/marking guide – check that there are sufficient instructions for assessors and clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are vital for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – these might include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Ensure they are appropriate for the assessment task and meet unit requirements.
Validation Committee
Clause 1.11 specifies the criteria for validation panel members, indicating that validation can involve one or more persons. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Overall, your validation panel should have:
Relevant vocational competencies and industry skills for the unit being validated
Up-to-date knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning
Any of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the successor version
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.
Having a validation tool supports the validation process and documentation. It simplifies understanding 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.
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.
Principles of Assessment Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Though these templates make validation easier, they can lead to judgment errors because they provide little room for comments on each assessment item.
It is highly recommended to use a more detailed template for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to 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 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.
Key Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment process ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various ways to demonstrate competence according to different needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is supposed to assess? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment produce the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?
Evidence Key Rules
Validity – Is the evidence proof 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 ensure 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 in line with current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?
Even though these are often covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle with these requirements.
To avoid using learning resources that leave certain unit requirements unaddressed, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:
Be Consistent with Your Teachings
Pay attention to the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the assessment item. For instance, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires students to:
Carry out 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, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
prepare solid foods and feed babies
appropriately respond to infant signs and cues
prepare babies for sleep and soothe them
monitor and foster age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
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.
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 sufficient.
All or Not Competent
Observe the lists. As illustrated 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?
Be Clearer
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 get more info be included in a work package?
What details can be included in a work package?
Possible answers include:
Essential resources
Associated expenses
Time allocated for activities
Assigned duties and responsibilities
If an assessment item demands multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. 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 select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers could include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
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.
Seeing these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But such guarantees mean you must wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.