Important Aspects of Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments

Important Aspects of Assessment Validation: How to Validate 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.

Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

To put it differently, validation is the process of confirming the accurate parts of an RTO's assessment process and identifying what can be enhanced. A correct understanding of its components makes it less intimidating.

Clause 1.8 of the 2015 SRTOs indicates that RTOs need to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted in accordance with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards require RTOs to perform two types of validation.

The initial assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements.

The second kind of validation ensures assessments are carried out in accordance with the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

Therefore, validation is conducted both before and after the assessment. This article emphasizes the first type: assessment tool validation.

Understanding the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Understanding 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, is concerned with the first part of the clause, which ensures all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are fully compliant.

On the implementation side, post-assessment validation ensures Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.

How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

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

When Should You Conduct Assessment Tool Validation?

The objective of assessment tool validation is to ensure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.

Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.

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.

Still, this isn't the sole reason for conducting this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:

- resources get updated
- new training products get added on scope
- you review your course against training product updates
- learning resources are identified by you as a risk during your risk assessment

The Australian Skills Quality Authority employs a risk-based approach for regulating RTOs and expects regular risk assessments. Therefore, student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.

What Training Products Need Validation?

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

What You Need for Assessment Tool Validation

Educational Resources

As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete 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 – check its suitability for use as an assessment tool. Verify clear instructions and sufficient answer fields. This is often a gap.

Assessor guide/marking guide – verify that instructions for assessors are comprehensive and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are present. Clear benchmarks are key to 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 Team

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.

As a whole, your validation panel must have:

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

Up-to-date expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of these training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its updated version

Assessment 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.
Using a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It facilitates seeing how each assessment item matches 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 website have validated your resources before students use them.

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.

Principles of Assessment Guide 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.

It is highly recommended to use a more detailed template for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to them. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Directions Standards Assessment Instrument 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.

Key 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 – Is the assessment measuring what it is supposed to measure? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment yield consistent results each time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Evidence Core Rules

Validity – Does the evidence indicate 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 confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool confirm that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Do the assessment tools align with current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?

Even though these are regularly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.

To avoid using learning resources that do not address all unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:

Practice Your Teachings

Focus on the verbs used in the unit requirements and make sure they are addressed by the assessment item. For example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires students to:

Carry out 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 in accordance with service and regulatory requirements:

diapering

bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment

solid food prep and feeding infants

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

Getting students to describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.

Watch Out for 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.
Pay attention to the numbers. In our 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 isn’t enough.

Full or Not Competent

Mind the lists. In the previous example, 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?
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 type of information can be included in a work package?

The answer could include:

Necessary resources

Relevant expenses

Activity duration

Specified roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item requires multiple answers, indicate the number of answers needed from a student. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected 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 work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Answers might include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering controls

People – isolating, engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering

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

Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.

Given these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” But such guarantees require you to wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.