Assessment Validation and You: Steps to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation and You: Steps to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

RTOs have numerous responsibilities post-registration, including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and ensuring marketing compliance. Among these tasks, validation often stands out as particularly challenging.

While we've discussed validation in multiple articles, let's return to the basics. ASQA defines validation as a quality check of the assessment process.

In essence, validation confirms which parts of an RTO's assessment process are correct and pinpoints elements for improvement. With a solid grasp of its key components, validation becomes manageable.

The SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8 specifies that RTOs need to ensure compliance of their assessment systems, including RPL, with training package requirements, following 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 validation type ensures that assessments adhere 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.

Defining the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Decoding Assessment Validation

As discussed earlier and in our prior blogs, validation involves two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Pre-assessment validation or verification, also known as assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, ensuring all unit requirements are met and workbooks are 100% compliant.

Post-assessment validation, in contrast, is about the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to conduct assessments adhering to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.

Guidelines for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Having discussed the two types of validation, let’s delve into 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.

Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them.

You don’t have to wait for the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources right away to ensure they are ready for students.

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

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

The Australian Skills Quality Authority employs a risk-based approach for regulating RTOs and expects regular risk assessments. Therefore, student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.

Which Training Products Should You Validate?

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.

Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation

Academic Resources

Since you are validating your assessment tools, you will require the entire suite of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – this is the initial document to review. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, speeding up 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 – 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 – might include checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Panel for Validation

Clause 1.11 details the requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be conducted by one or more people. Generally, RTOs require participation from all trainers and assessors and may include industry experts.

As a group, your validation panel must possess:

Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to the unit being validated

Current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Either one of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the successor version

Assessment 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.
Using a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It facilitates seeing how each assessment item matches 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.
At the same time, it acts as documentation that you have validated your resources before allowing student use.

ASQA does not provide a specific template for assessment tool validation, but numerous templates can be found online. These tools often have validators look at the tools as a whole to verify if they meet the principles of assessment.

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

Although such templates ease validation, they can cause judgment errors since there’s minimal space for comments on each assessment item.

We strongly suggest using a more detailed template to evaluate each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Here is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Guidelines Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Look For?

As noted in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Basic Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment process provide equal opportunity and access to everyone?

Flexibility – Does the assessment offer multiple ways to show competence according to different needs and preferences?

Validity – Is the assessment read more evaluating what it is intended to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for assessing 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 Core 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 the evidence enough to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Is the assessment tool verifying that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Do the assessment tools reflect current units of competency and modern industry practices?

Even though these are often covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle with these requirements.

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

Follow Through with Actions

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:

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:

diaper changing

bottle preparation, feeding infants from bottles, and cleaning equipment

prepare solids and feed babies

respond to baby signs and cues suitably

settle babies for sleep and prepare them

monitor and promote 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.

Plurals Matter!
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.
Mind 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 doesn’t suffice.

All or No Competence

Mind the lists. Again, 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?
Provide More Detail

Every assessment item must have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, make sure 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?

The answer could include:

Required materials

Appropriate costs

Time assigned for activities

Allocated roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item demands multiple answers, indicate the number of answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected 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:

Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Answers can include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, engineering

People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering

Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

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

Considering these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” However, such guarantees require you to wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant approach.