Assessment Validation Unpacked: Guide to Validating Assessments
Assessment Validation Unpacked: Guide to Validating 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.
We've covered validation in many articles, but it's worth re-examining. ASQA defines it as a quality review of the assessment procedure.
Validation is essentially about verifying the accuracy of parts of an RTO's assessment process and spotting areas needing improvement. Understanding its key components can make it less daunting.
Clause 1.8 in the SRTOs 2015 outlines that RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards require RTOs to perform 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 next validation type confirms assessments are conducted following the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This means we validate assessments both before and after they are conducted. This article will cover the first type—assessment tool validation.
The Basics of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
The Fundamentals of Assessment Validation
As noted earlier and in previous blog posts, validation comprises 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 hand, post-assessment validation deals with implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This article will focus on assessment tool validation.
Procedure for Assessment Tool Validation
With a clear understanding of the two types of validation, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
Best Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation is intended to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.
Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, assessment tool validation should be conducted before students use them.
You don't have to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources as soon as you get them to ensure they’re suitable for students.
However, this isn't the only time to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- you update your resources
- your new training products get added on scope
- course is reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources are identified by you 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.
Selecting 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.
Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need
Academic Resources
For validation of your assessment tools, you will require the full set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the initial document to investigate. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, helping speed up validation.
Learner/student workbook – ensure it's appropriate for use as an assessment tool. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a frequent 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 created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they are appropriate for the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Assessment Validation Panel
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.
As a group, your validation panel must possess:
Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated
Up-to-date expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
One of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an updated successor
Validation tool/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.
A validation tool aids in both the validation process and documentation. It helps visualize how each assessment item meets 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 can also serve as proof that you have validated your resources before allowing students to use them.
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 facilitate the validation process, they can result in judgment errors due to the limited space for comments on each assessment item.
We strongly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that read more map to them. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Guidelines Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Examine?
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.
Key Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment process ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?
Flexibility – Are various options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment evaluate what it is intended to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment give the same results every time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision 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 there sufficient evidence 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 – Do the assessment tools mirror current units of competency and modern 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 do not meet some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:
Walk the Talk
Pay close 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 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:
changing nappies
prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment
solid food prep and feeding babies
respond to baby signs and cues appropriately
settle babies for sleep and prepare them
monitor and encourage physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable for the age
Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly meet the unit requirement. Unless the unit requirement is meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Mind 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.
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 won’t suffice.
Total or Not Competent
Pay attention to lists. Again, as illustrated above, 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?
Clarify Further
Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important that your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What sort of information can be included in a work package?
The answer may include:
Essential resources
Relevant expenses
Duration of activities
Assigned roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.
This is also true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that require multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental concern in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering controls
People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” But these guarantees mean you have to wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.