Comprehensive Insights on Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments
Comprehensive Insights on Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments
Blog Article
Post-registration, RTOs are tasked with many responsibilities including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, and validation is often the most challenging.
Even though we’ve written about validation several times, let's revisit its definition. ASQA calls validation 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 per the 2015 SRTOs Clause 1.8, RTOs are required to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, meet training package requirements and follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
As per the standards, two kinds of validation are required.
The primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.
The second type of validation verifies assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This suggests we perform validation both before and after the assessment. This article will concentrate on the first type—assessment tool validation.
The Fundamentals of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Clarifying 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, relates to the first part of the clause, emphasizing the need to meet all unit requirements and ensuring all workbooks are 100% compliant.
Conversely, post-assessment validation focuses on the implementation side, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
For this piece, our emphasis will be on assessment tool validation.
How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
With a clear understanding of the two types of validation, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
Appropriate Times for Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation seeks to ensure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them.
You don’t need to wait until the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.
However, this isn't the only time to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- you update resources
- new training products are added to your scope
- review your course against training product updates
- learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment
The risk-based regulatory approach of ASQA requires RTOs to perform regular risk assessments. Student complaints about learning resources indicate it's time for assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
Recall, this type of validation aims to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs must validate each unit's resources.
Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation
Study Resources
As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – start with this document. It illustrates which assessment items address unit requirements, making validation quicker.
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 – ensure 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 sets out the requirements for validation panel members, stating that validation can be conducted by one or more individuals. RTOs generally require all trainers and assessors to be involved, sometimes including industry experts.
In total, your validation panel must have:
Up-to-date vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated
Current knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning
Either one of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next version
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.
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 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 Form Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While these templates simplify the validation process, they can introduce judgment errors because there is insufficient space for comments on each assessment item.
We highly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Review?
As discussed in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Core Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access ensured in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Are multiple options available 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 achieve 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 prove 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 enough evidence to confirm 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?
Despite being frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still have issues with these requirements.
To avoid using learning resources that do not address all unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Practice What You Preach
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:
Perform each of the following activities 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:
nappying
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment
solid food prep and feeding babies
respond suitably to infant signs and cues
prepare and settle babies for sleep
monitor and promote age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
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 requires students to complete the tasks at least website once with two different babies under 12 months old. Doing the tasks twice with one baby isn’t sufficient.
Full 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?
Be Clearer
Each assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important that your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What types of information can be included in a work package?
The answer might include:
Needed materials
Relevant expenses
Activity duration
Assigned roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item calls for several answers, specify the number of answers needed from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered is valid.
This also applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that ask for multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers may include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolating, engineering controls
People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to judge competence accurately.
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.