Getting Started with Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments

Getting Started with Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

Among the numerous obligations RTOs face post-registration—annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, marketing compliance—validation is often the most dreaded.

We have numerous articles on validation, but let's go back to the term itself. ASQA defines validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

Essentially, validation is about identifying which parts of an RTO's assessment process are effective and which need improvement. With a proper grasp of its key aspects, validation becomes less daunting.

As stated in Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards require RTOs to perform two types of validation.

The primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.

The subsequent validation type ensures assessments are in line with the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

This shows that validation happens pre- and post-assessment. We will focus on the first type—assessment tool validation.

Understanding the Two Types of Assessment Validation

A Deep Dive into Assessment Validation

As we mentioned earlier and in our past blogs, validation consists of 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.

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.

Here, we will concentrate on assessment tool validation.

How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

After reviewing the two types of validation, let’s explore the specifics of assessment tool validation.

When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done

Assessment tool validation is intended to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.

This means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, you must perform assessment tool validation before student use.

No need to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they’re suitable for students.

Yet, this is not the only occasion to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:

- updating your resources
- new training products are added to your scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources get identified 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.

What Training Products Need 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.

Necessary Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Educational Resources

To validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set 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 – 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 – 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 – might include checklists, registers, and templates created apart from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they fit the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Validation Committee

Clause 1.11 outlines the requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be done by one or more people. Typically, RTOs require all trainers and assessors to attend and may invite industry experts.

Your validation panel, as a group, must possess:

Relevant vocational competencies and up-to-date industry skills for the unit being validated

Current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning

One of these training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its successor

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 unit requirement.
A validation tool is beneficial for both the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to understand 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.

While ASQA does not have a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, many templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to review the tools as a whole to see if they meet the principles of assessment.

Principles of Assessment Checklist 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 advisable to use a more detailed template to inspect 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 Needs Review?

As mentioned in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you need to ensure that your assessment tools allow trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Basic Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment provide equal opportunity and access to all participants?

Flexibility – Does the assessment provide multiple options to show competence according to various needs and preferences?

Validity – Does the assessment assess what it is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for measuring 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?

Evidence Rules

Validity – Is the evidence confirming 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 the evidence sufficient 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 – Are the assessment tools updated to reflect current units of competency and industry practices?

Although these are regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools still struggle to meet these requirements.

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

Practice What You Preach

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:

Perform 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 in accordance with service and regulatory requirements:

diapering

bottle preparation, feeding infants from bottles, and cleaning equipment

solid food prep and feeding infants

respond suitably to baby signs and cues

prepare babies for sleep and soothe them

monitor and encourage suitable physical exploration and gross motor skills 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.

Look Out for 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 No Competence

Pay attention to lists. As mentioned 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?
Add More Specificity

Every assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Consequently, ensure your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What ASQA assessment validation guidelines kind of information can be included in a work package?
What details can be included in a work package?

Answers might include:

Essential resources

Related costs

Length of activities

Specified 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.

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:

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

Answers can include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, personal protective equipment

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering

People – isolating, engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering

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

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

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

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.