Assessment Validation: Tips and Insights on How to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: Tips and Insights on How to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

RTOs have numerous responsibilities post-registration, including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and ensuring marketing compliance. Among these tasks, validation often stands out as particularly challenging.

Although we've written about validation many times, let’s redefine it. ASQA refers to validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

In essence, validation confirms which parts of an RTO's assessment process are correct and pinpoints elements for improvement. With a solid grasp of its key components, validation becomes manageable.

The SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8 specifies that RTOs need to ensure compliance of their assessment systems, including RPL, with training package requirements, following the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

As per the standards, two kinds of validation are required.

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

The subsequent validation confirms that assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

Therefore, validation is conducted both before and after the assessment. This article emphasizes the first type: assessment tool validation.

The Basics of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

An Overview of 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.

Pre-assessment validation, also referred to as assessment tool validation, is related to the first part of the clause, ensuring all unit requirements are addressed and workbooks are entirely compliant.

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.

Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.

Steps to Perform Assessment Tool Validation

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

When is Assessment Tool Validation Conducted?

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 your next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources promptly to ensure they’re ready for students.

Still, this isn't the only reason for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:

- your resources get updated
- new training products are added to your scope
- course is reviewed by you against training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during the 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 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.

Resources Required for Assessment Tool Validation

Course Materials

For validating your assessment tools, 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 as an assessment tool. Check if the instructions are clear and answer fields are adequate. This is a frequent issue.

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 – such as checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Ensure they are suitable for the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Validation Panel

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.

Your validation panel must, as a group, possess:

Relevant vocational competencies and industry skills applicable to the unit being validated

Up-to-date knowledge 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 equivalent successor

Assessment validation tool/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 is beneficial for both the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to understand 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.
It also serves as evidence 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. check here Reliable

Although such templates ease validation, they can cause judgment errors since there’s minimal space 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 Should Be Checked?

As we covered in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Key Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment provide equal opportunity and access to all participants?

Flexibility – Does the assessment provide multiple options to show competence according to various needs and preferences?

Validity – Does 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 consistent results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Evidence Rules

Validity – Does the evidence show 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 sufficient to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Is the assessment tool ensuring that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Do the assessment tools correspond to current units of competency and 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 adhere to these guidelines:

Demonstrate What You Teach

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:

Complete 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 according to service and regulatory requirements:

change nappies

bottle preparation, feeding infants from bottles, and cleaning equipment

prepare solids and feed infants

respond properly to infant signs and cues

prepare babies for sleep and settle them

monitor and encourage suitable physical exploration and gross motor skills 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.

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 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.

Complete or Not Competent

Observe the 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?
Add More Specificity

Each assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important that your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What can be included in a work package?

The answer can include:

Obligatory resources

Associated costs

Activity length

Allocated duties and responsibilities

When an assessment item calls for several answers, indicate the number of answers required from a student. 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:

Identify a hazard and/or environmental concern in the work area and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Answers might include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolating, engineering controls

People – isolating, engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering

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

Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration

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

Considering these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” But such guarantees require you to wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.