Assessment Validation: Tips and Insights on How to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: Tips and Insights on How to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

With registration, RTOs must juggle many responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, where validation often causes the most anxiety.

Though we've written extensively on validation, let's clarify it again. ASQA describes it as a quality assessment review.

Simply put, validation confirms which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are right and identifies where improvements are needed. A clear understanding of its main components makes it less intimidating.

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 initial validation type checks that your RTO's assessments align with the training package requirements.

The second validation ensures assessments are conducted according to 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 Two Types of Assessment Validation Explained

An Introduction to Assessment Validation

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

Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, emphasizing the need to meet all unit requirements and ensuring all workbooks are 100% compliant.

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

For this piece, our emphasis will be on assessment tool validation.

How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

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

When is Assessment Tool Validation Conducted?

The goal of assessment tool validation is to make sure 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 need to wait for your next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are suitable for student use.

However, there are additional reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation also when you:

- when resources are updated
- new training products are added to your scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- you identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment

ASQA applies a risk-based approach to regulate RTOs, expecting regular risk assessments. Hence, student complaints about learning resources are a good opportunity for assessment tool validation.

What Training Products Should Be Validated?

Keep in mind, this validation ensures that all learning resources comply before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.

What Do You Need for Assessment Tool Validation?

Study Resources

For validation of your assessment tools, you will require the full set 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's appropriate as an assessment tool. Check if the instructions are clear and answer fields are adequate. This is a frequent issue.

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 – these might include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Ensure they are appropriate for the assessment task and meet unit requirements.

Validation Panel

Clause 1.11 specifies the requirements for validation panel members. It states validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.

In total, your validation panel must have:

Vocational competencies and current industry skills that relate to the unit being validated

Recent knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning

One of these training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next version

Assessment validation checklist/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.
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 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.

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

While templates of this kind simplify click here validation, they can introduce judgment errors due to a lack of space for comments 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 Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Inspected?

As we covered in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment 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 evaluate what it is meant to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment give consistent results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?

Evidence Basic Rules

Validity – Does the evidence demonstrate 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 adequate to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Is the assessment tool verifying that the work belongs to the candidate?

Currency – Are the assessment tools updated to reflect current units of competency and industry practices?

Although these are commonly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, a lot of tools still fail to meet these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:

Practice Your Teachings

Observe 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 requires students to:

Complete 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 according to service and regulatory requirements:

diaper change

prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment

solid food prep and feeding infants

respond suitably to baby signs and cues

settle infants for sleep and prepare them

monitor and foster physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate 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.

Pay Attention to 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.

Entire 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?
Could You Be Clearer?

Every assessment item must include clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Consequently, ensure your instructions are clear and 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 can include:

Needed materials

Appropriate costs

Length of activities

Allocated duties 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.

The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that ask for multiple answers simultaneously. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:

Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the workplace and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Possible answers could include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment

Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering controls

People – isolating, engineering, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administration

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.

Seeing these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees mean you must wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.