The Process of Assessment Validation: Steps to Validate Assessments
The Process of Assessment Validation: Steps 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.
Validation is the process of confirming accurate areas in an RTO's assessment process and pinpointing elements for improvement. With a correct understanding of its components, it’s less daunting.
Clause 1.8 in the SRTOs 2015 outlines that RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
According to the standards, two types of validation must be conducted.
The initial validation type checks that your RTO's assessments align 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.
This implies that we validate both prior to and following the assessment. The focus of this article is on the first type: assessment tool validation.
An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Unraveling Assessment Validation
As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is split into two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Assessment tool validation, known as pre-assessment validation, pertains to the first part of the clause, focusing on meeting all unit requirements and ensuring total workbook compliance.
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.
In this article, we will emphasize assessment tool validation.
Steps for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Now that we’ve differentiated the two types of validation, let’s examine assessment tool validation in detail.
When to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are included in your assessment tools.
This implies that any time you get new learning resources, assessment tool validation must be done before they are used by students.
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.
Still, this isn't the only reason for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- update your resources
- new training products are added by you on scope
- course is reviewed by you against training product updates
- learning resources are identified by you as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based regulatory approach means RTOs should conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources are a prime opportunity for assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
It's important to remember this validation ensures that all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs need to validate resources for each unit.
Essential Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Instructional Resources
Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document you should look at. It highlights which assessment items meet unit requirements, accelerating validation.
Learner/student workbook – validate its suitability as an assessment tool. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are adequate. This is a frequent gap.
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 – such as checklists, registers, and templates created independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they are suitable for the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Panel
Clause 1.11 describes the requirements for validation panel members, indicating that validation can be performed by one or more persons. RTOs often require all trainers and assessors to attend, and sometimes industry experts are invited.
As a group, your validation panel must possess:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills that relate to the unit being validated
Current expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an updated successor
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.
Using a validation tool is advantageous for both the validation process and documentation. It aids in viewing 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.
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.
Assessment Principles Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Though these templates make validation easier, they can lead to judgment errors because they provide little room for comments on each assessment item.
We recommend using a more detailed template to examine each unit requirement and the assessment items that correspond to them. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?
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 offered to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer multiple ways to show competence according to different 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 give the same results every time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Basic Rules check here of Evidence
Validity – Is the evidence proof 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 sufficient evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool confirming 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 regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still have issues with these requirements.
To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Act on Your Words
Pay 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:
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:
changing diapers
bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment
prepare solid food and feed babies
respond properly to baby signs and cues
prepare babies for sleep and soothe them
monitor and encourage age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students explain changing nappies for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly address the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out 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 our 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 is not sufficient.
Complete Compliance 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
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 kind of information can be included in a work package?
What can be included in a work package?
The answer might include:
Required resources
Associated expenses
Time span of activities
Allocated duties and responsibilities
If an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify 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 those that require multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental concern in the workplace and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers may include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, engineering
People – isolating, engineering, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to judge competence accurately.
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.