Assessment Validation: A Comprehensive Guide to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation: A Comprehensive Guide 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.
Even though we’ve written about validation several times, let's revisit its definition. ASQA calls validation a quality review of the assessment process.
Validation involves verifying which areas of an RTO's assessment process are correct and highlighting where improvements are needed. Understanding its key components makes the task less intimidating.
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.
The standards require RTOs to perform two types of validation.
The first type of validation ensures that your RTO's assessment meets the requirements of the training package within your scope.
The next validation type confirms assessments are conducted following 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.
What are the Two Types of Assessment Validation?
A Deep Dive into 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.
Assessment tool validation, sometimes called pre-assessment validation, focuses on ensuring all unit requirements are met, in line with the first part of the clause, ensuring complete workbook compliance.
In post-assessment validation, the emphasis is on implementation, ensuring that Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments as per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This article will focus on assessment tool validation.
How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Having outlined the two types of validation, it’s time to dive into assessment tool validation.
Timing of Assessment Tool Validation
The purpose of assessment tool validation is to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.
Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation is necessary before student use.
There's no requirement to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources promptly to ensure they’re appropriate for students.
Still, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- updating your resources
- new training products get added on scope
- you review your course against training product updates
- your learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA's risk-based regulation approach means RTOs should perform regular risk assessments. If students complain about learning resources, it's a perfect time for assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
Remember, this validation aims to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs are expected to validate all unit resources.
Essential Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Course Materials
For validation of your assessment tools, you will require the full set 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 – assess its appropriateness as an assessment tool. Confirm clear instructions and adequate answer fields. This is a common problem.
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 – 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.
Assessment Validation Team
Clause 1.11 outlines the requirements for validation panel members, indicating validation can be done by one or more individuals. Typically, RTOs require all trainers and assessors to attend, occasionally inviting industry experts.
Overall, your validation panel should have:
Up-to-date vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated
Current 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 the successor version
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.
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.
Additionally, it can provide proof that you have validated your resources before students use them.
While ASQA does not have a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, many templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to review the tools as a whole to see if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment 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.
A more detailed template is highly recommended for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that align with them. Below is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Look For?
As noted in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Essential Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access ensured in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Are different options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on individual 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 produce the same results each time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions on skill competence?
Rules of Evidence
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 there sufficient evidence to ensure 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 reflect current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Although these are frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle to meet these requirements.
To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Follow Through with Actions
Take note of 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 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:
change diapers
bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment
solid food prep and feeding babies
appropriately respond to infant signs and cues
prepare infants for sleep and settle them
monitor and encourage 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.
Heed 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 click here 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 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 suffice.
All or Nothing
Observe the lists. As mentioned above, 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 Clearer?
Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Hence, it’s important that your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What type of information can be included in a work package?
Answers can include:
Needed materials
Pertinent costs
Length of activities
Specified roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item demands multiple answers, indicate the number of answers a student must provide. This ensures 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:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers may include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, use of engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Seeing these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” However, with such guarantees, you must wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.