Understanding Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
Understanding Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
After gaining registration, RTOs need to monitor several aspects including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, with validation being a major concern.
Despite our extensive coverage on validation, let's re-examine the term. ASQA states that validation is a quality check of the assessment process.
Put simply, validation checks which parts of an RTO's assessment process are accurate and spots areas for enhancement. A proper understanding of its main elements can make validation less daunting.
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.
The standards require RTOs to perform two types of validation.
The initial validation type checks that your RTO's assessments align with the training package requirements.
The following validation type ensures that assessments follow the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
Thus, we understand that validation is done before and after the assessment. This article highlights the first type: assessment tool validation.
Breaking Down the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Breaking Down Assessment Validation
As discussed before and in previous blogs, validation includes two processes: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, emphasizing the need to meet all unit requirements and ensuring all workbooks are 100% compliant.
Conversely, post-assessment validation focuses on the implementation side, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.
How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
Ideal Times to Conduct 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.
This implies that any time you get new learning resources, assessment tool validation must be done before they are used by students.
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.
Yet, this is not the only occasion to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- you update resources
- you add new training products on scope
- your course gets reviewed against training product updates
- your learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA's risk-based approach to regulation necessitates regular risk assessments by RTOs. If there are student complaints about learning resources, it's an opportune time for assessment tool validation.
How to Choose Training Products for Validation
Keep in mind, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Necessary Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Study Resources
For validation of your assessment tools, you will require the full set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the primary document to check. It reveals which assessment items align with unit requirements, expediting 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 – confirm that instructions for assessors are adequate and clear benchmarks for each assessment item exist. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – may consist of checklists, registers, and templates created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they are appropriate for the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Panel
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.
Your validation panel, as a group, must possess:
Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to the unit being validated
Current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
One of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its equivalent
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.
A validation tool assists in both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies identifying how each assessment item corresponds 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.
Simultaneously, it can serve as proof that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.
Although ASQA does not recommend or require a particular template for assessment tool validation, many templates are accessible online. These tools typically have validators examine the tools in their entirety to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While such templates facilitate validation, they often result in judgment errors because there’s insufficient space for comments on each assessment item.
It is advisable to use a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Below is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Guidelines Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Checked?
As outlined in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Key Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment provide multiple options to show competence according to various needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment test what it is meant to test? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment produce the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?
Core Rules 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 enough evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool verifying that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Do the assessment tools mirror current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Although these are regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools still struggle 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
Observe the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the assessment item. For example, in the website unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires students to:
Perform 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 in accordance with service and regulatory requirements:
nappying
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies, and clean equipment
solid food prep and feeding infants
respond appropriately to baby signs and cues
prepare and settle babies for rest
monitor and encourage suitable physical exploration and gross motor skills for the age
Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly address the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing 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.
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.
All Requirements or Not Competent
Pay attention to lists. As noted 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?
Can You Clarify Further?
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 can be included in a work package?
Answers may include:
Compulsory resources
Associated costs
Duration of activities
Appointed duties and responsibilities
If an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers are needed from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence obtained is valid.
This is true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions requiring more than one answer at the same time. These can confuse students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental concern in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers can include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” But these guarantees mean you have to wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.