Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

RTOs face many tasks after registration, such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, but validation is typically the most daunting.

Although our articles cover validation extensively, let’s redefine it. According to ASQA, validation is a quality review of the assessment process.

To put it differently, validation is the process of confirming the accurate parts of an RTO's assessment process and identifying what can be enhanced. A correct understanding of its components makes it less intimidating.

As stated in Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the training package requirements and adhere to 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.

This suggests we perform validation both before and after the assessment. This article will concentrate on the first type—assessment tool validation.

The Two Types of Assessment Validation Explained

The Basics of Assessment Validation

As discussed before and in previous blogs, validation includes two processes: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Assessment tool validation, also called pre-assessment validation, pertains to ensuring all unit requirements are addressed, as outlined in the first part of the clause, ensuring total workbook compliance.

On the other side, post-assessment validation pertains to the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This article will focus on assessment tool validation.

The Process of Assessment Tool Validation

Now that we’ve differentiated the two types of validation, let’s examine assessment tool validation in detail.

Optimal Timing for Assessment Tool Validation

Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are included in your assessment tools.

Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation is necessary before student use.

You don't have to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources as soon as you get them to ensure they’re suitable for students.

Nonetheless, there are other reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:

- update your resources
- new training products are added on scope
- reviewing your course against training product updates
- your risk assessment includes identifying your learning resources as a risk

The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach to regulation means RTOs must conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources signal the need 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.

What You Need for Assessment Tool Validation

Learning Materials

For validation of your assessment tools, you will require the full set of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – this should be the first document to examine. It shows which assessment items correspond to unit requirements, facilitating quicker validation.

Learner/student workbook – assess its appropriateness for use as an assessment tool. Verify clear instructions and adequate answer fields. This is often a gap.

Assessor guide/marking guide – check that instructions for assessors are adequate and that there are clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are essential for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – these might include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Ensure they are appropriate for the assessment task and meet unit requirements.

Validation Team

Clause 1.11 sets out the requirements for validation panel members, stating that validation can be conducted by one or more individuals. RTOs generally require all trainers and assessors to be involved, sometimes including industry experts.

As a group, your validation panel must possess:

Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated

Up-to-date knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the equivalent 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.
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.
It serves as documentation 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 Guide 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.

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 Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Look For?

As detailed in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it is crucial that your assessment tools enable trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Core Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access ensured in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Are various options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different 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 achieve the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently make decisions on skill competence?

Fundamental Rules of Evidence

Validity – Is the evidence demonstrating 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 the evidence enough to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool verify 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 frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle to meet these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:

Walk the Talk

Pay close attention to the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure 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:

diapering

bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment

prepare solids and feed babies

appropriately respond to infant signs and cues

prepare and settle babies for rest

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

Getting students to describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses 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 12 months of age. Having students complete the tasks listed twice on just 1 baby won’t cut it.
Pay attention to 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 isn’t enough.

All or No Competence

Pay attention to lists. Again, as illustrated above, if students perform just 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?
Clarify Further

Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, 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 kind of information can be included in a work package?

The answer may include:

Needed resources

Associated costs

Time assigned for activities

Assigned duties and responsibilities

When an assessment item calls for multiple answers, indicate the number of answers a student needs to provide. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered 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:

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

Answers might include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, personal protective equipment

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

People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of Assessment validation requirements Australia engineering controls, administrative controls

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to judge student competence accurately.

Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” However, with these guarantees, you must wait for an audit before they help rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it's better to take a safe and compliant approach.