Comprehensive Insights on Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments
Comprehensive Insights on Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments
Blog Article
Once RTOs receive registration, they must oversee many aspects such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance. Of all these duties, validation is frequently the most daunting.
Although our articles cover validation extensively, let’s redefine it. According to ASQA, validation is a quality review of the assessment process.
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 of the SRTOs 2015 mandates that RTOs ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant 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 assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements.
The following validation type ensures that assessments follow the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
It indicates that validation occurs both before and after the assessment. The focus here is on the first type: assessment tool validation.
Exploring the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Breaking Down Assessment Validation
As discussed earlier and in our prior blogs, validation involves 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.
In contrast, post-assessment validation focuses on the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.
Methods for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
Optimal Timing for 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.
This implies that any time new learning resources are obtained, assessment tool validation must be done before student use.
You don’t have to wait for the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources right away to ensure they are ready for students.
Still, this isn't the only reason for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- resources are updated by you
- your scope includes new training products
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- learning resources are 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 to Validate?
Recall, this type of validation aims to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs must validate each unit's resources.
Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need
Academic Resources
To validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – this should be the first document to examine. It shows which assessment items correspond to unit requirements, facilitating quicker validation.
Learner/student workbook – validate its suitability as an assessment tool. Confirm that instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common problem.
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 – these could be checklists, registers, and templates created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.
Panel for Validation
Clause 1.11 specifies the criteria for validation panel members, indicating that validation can involve one or more persons. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Collectively, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills that relate to the unit being validated
Recent knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its updated 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 aids both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies seeing how each assessment item maps to 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.
Additionally, it can provide proof that you 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 Template 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.
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 Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Look For?
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 – Is equal opportunity and access provided to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment accommodate different options to demonstrate competence according to various needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for evaluating the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment yield the same results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Essential Rules of Evidence
Validity – Does the evidence confirm 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 enough to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool proving that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools in line with current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?
Even though these are regularly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Act on Your Words
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:
diaper change
prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment
prepare solid foods and feed babies
respond suitably to baby signs and cues
prepare babies for sleep and settle 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 doesn’t fulfill the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses 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 asks 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 meet the requirement.
Total or Not Competent
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?
Could You Be More Specific?
Every assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, make sure your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What sort of information can be included in a work package?
Possible answers include:
Required materials
Pertinent costs
Length of activities
Allocated duties 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.
The same applies Assessment validation process Australia to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those asking for multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse both 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 might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolation of the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to judge competence accurately.
Given these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But these guarantees require waiting for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.