Demystifying Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments

Demystifying Assessment Validation: How 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.

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 is the process of confirming accurate areas in an RTO's assessment process and pinpointing elements for improvement. With a correct understanding of its components, it’s less daunting.

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 specify that two types of validation need to be performed.

The first assessment validation type verifies that your RTO's assessments adhere to the training package requirements within your scope.

The next validation ensures that assessments are conducted per 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.

A Look at the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Fundamentals of Assessment Validation

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

Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, is concerned with the first part of the clause, which ensures all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are fully compliant.

Post-assessment validation, by contrast, focuses on implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

In this article, we will emphasize assessment tool validation.

Methods for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Now that we’ve differentiated the two types of validation, let’s examine assessment tool validation in detail.

Timing for Conducting 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.

Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation should be carried out before students use them.

There's no need to wait for your next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are suitable for student use.

Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:

- update your resources
- add new training products on scope
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- identifying 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.

Determining Training Products for 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

Educational Resources

Given that you are validating your assessment tools, you will need the complete array 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 as an assessment tool during validation. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.

Assessor guide/marking guide – also verify if instructions for assessors are sufficient and if clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – such as checklists, registers, and templates created independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they are suitable for the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Validation Board

Clause 1.11 describes the requirements for validation panel members, stating that validation can be conducted by one or more individuals. RTOs often require all trainers and assessors to be present, occasionally including industry experts.

Overall, your validation panel should have:

Vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated

Recent expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its successor

Assessment 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.
Using a validation tool benefits both the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to comprehend 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.
Simultaneously, it provides documentation that you have validated your resources before students use them.

ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates can be found online. These tools often have validators review the tools as a whole to verify if they meet the principles of assessment.

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

While templates like these make validation easier, they also allow for judgment errors since there is little room for commenting 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 Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Examine?

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

Reliability – Will the assessment achieve the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently make decisions on skill competence?

Core Rules of Evidence

Validity – Is the evidence showing 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 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 – Do the assessment tools mirror 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 overlook some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:

Be Consistent with 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:

Complete 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:

nappy change

bottle preparation, feeding babies from bottles, and cleaning equipment

prepare solid food and feed infants

respond properly to infant signs and cues

prepare and settle babies for rest

monitor and promote physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable for the age

Having students explain changing nappies for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly address the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out the tasks.

Watch Out for the 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 Nothing

Pay attention to lists. As noted earlier, 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?
Clarify Further

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 website confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What sort of information can be included in a work package?

Answers can include:

Necessary materials

Applicable expenses

Time assigned for activities

Assigned functions and responsibilities

If an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify the number of answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.

This applies equally to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that require more than one answer at the same time. These can confuse students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:

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

Possible answers may include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolation of work area, engineering, PPE

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

People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls

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

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge student 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.