Assessment Validation Overview: Steps to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation Overview: Steps to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
After gaining registration, RTOs need to monitor several aspects including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, with validation being a major concern.
Though we've written extensively on validation, let's clarify it again. ASQA describes it as a quality assessment review.
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.
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.
We are required by the standards to carry out 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.
It indicates that validation occurs both before and after the assessment. The focus here is on the first type: assessment tool validation.
Breaking Down the Two Types of Assessment Validation
The Meaning of Assessment Validation
As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is split into two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Assessment tool validation, often referred to as pre-assessment validation or verification, deals with ensuring all unit requirements are addressed as per the first part of the clause, ensuring complete workbook compliance.
Conversely, post-assessment validation pertains to the implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Our focus in this article will be on assessment tool validation.
How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done
Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed 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.
There's no necessity to wait for the next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are appropriate for student use.
Still, this isn't the sole reason for conducting this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- when resources are updated
- your new training products get added on scope
- when course is reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach to regulation means RTOs must conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources signal the need for assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products to Validate?
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.
What Do You Need for Assessment Tool Validation?
Study Resources
Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document you should look at. It highlights which assessment items meet unit requirements, accelerating 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 instructions for assessors are adequate and that there are clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are essential 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 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.
Your validation panel must, as a group, possess:
Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated
Recent knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of these training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its future version
Assessment validation document/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 check here unit requirement.
Having a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It makes it simpler to see 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.
It also acts as evidence that you have validated your resources prior to student use.
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 Form Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Although these templates ease the validation process, they can cause errors in judgment as there is minimal space 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 Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?
As stated in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you must ensure your assessment tools allow trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Key Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment provide equal opportunity and access to all participants?
Flexibility – Does the assessment accommodate different options to demonstrate competence according to various needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment test what it is meant to test? 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?
Key Rules of Evidence
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 the evidence sufficient 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 in line with current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?
Despite these being frequently addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, heaps of tools still have problems with these requirements.
To avoid employing learning resources that fail to meet all unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Act on Your Words
Pay attention to 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 asks students to:
Carry out each of the following 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
bottle preparation, feeding babies from bottles, and cleaning equipment
prepare solid food and feed infants
respond to baby signs and cues suitably
prepare and settle infants for rest
monitor and promote physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable for the age
Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly fulfill the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.
Be Cautious with 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 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 is not sufficient.
Complete Compliance or Not Competent
Mind the lists. In the previous example, 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?
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 details can be included in a work package?
The answer might include:
Needed resources
Appropriate costs
Time span of activities
Appointed roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item demands multiple answers, specify the number of answers required from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence obtained 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:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers could include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering controls
People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, use of engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to answer 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.