An Expert Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments

An Expert Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments

Blog Article

RTOs must handle various tasks post-registration, such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, but validation usually presents the biggest challenge.

Though we've written extensively on validation, let's clarify it again. ASQA describes it as a quality assessment review.

Simply put, validation confirms which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are right and identifies where improvements are needed. A clear understanding of its main components makes it less intimidating.

The 2015 SRTOs Clause 1.8 requires RTOs to make sure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

We are required by the standards to carry out two types of validation.

The first kind of assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessment adheres to the training package requirements within your scope.

The next type of validation confirms assessments are carried out following 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.

The Two Types of Assessment Validation Explained

Assessment Validation: What It Is

As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blog entries, validation is divided into 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.

Post-assessment validation, in contrast, is about the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to conduct assessments adhering to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.

Steps for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Having outlined the two types of validation, it’s time to dive into assessment tool validation.

When Should You 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 means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, you must perform assessment tool validation before student use.

You don’t need to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.

However, this isn't the only instance to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:

- resources get updated
- new training products are added to your scope
- when course is reviewed against training product updates
- you identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment

ASQA applies a risk-based approach to regulate RTOs, expecting regular risk assessments. Hence, student complaints about learning resources are a good opportunity for assessment tool validation.

Identifying Training Products for Validation

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.

Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need

Study Resources

Given that you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the full array 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 – ensure it's appropriate for use as an assessment tool. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a frequent gap.

Assessor guide/marking guide – confirm that instructions for assessors are adequate and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are present. Clear benchmarks are crucial 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 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.

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

Either of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an updated successor

Assessment validation instrument/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.
Additionally, it can act as evidence that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.

ASQA does not specify a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools in their entirety to ensure 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 simplify the validation process, they can introduce judgment errors because there is insufficient 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 Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Check?

As mentioned in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you need to ensure that your assessment tools allow trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Basic Principles
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 – Does click here the assessment measure what it is supposed to measure? Is it a valid tool for evaluating 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?

Evidence Core Rules

Validity – Is the evidence confirming 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 adequate evidence 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?

Although these are often addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.

To avoid employing learning resources that fail to meet all unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Lead by Example

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 tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication per service and regulatory requirements:

diaper change

bottle preparation, feeding infants from bottles, and cleaning equipment

solid food prep and feeding babies

respond to infant signs and cues appropriately

prepare infants for sleep and soothe them

monitor and encourage age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills

Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly fulfill the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.

Be Cautious with 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 asks students to complete the tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old. Doing the tasks twice with one baby won’t suffice.

All or No Competence

Pay attention to lists. As illustrated 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 More Specific?

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 kinds of information can be included in a work package?

Possible answers could include:

Necessary resources

Relevant expenses

Activity duration

Allocated roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.

The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that ask for multiple answers simultaneously. Such questions can confuse both 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.

Possible answers 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 – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls

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

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to accurately judge student competence.

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