Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide 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 our articles cover validation extensively, let’s redefine it. According to ASQA, validation is a quality review of the assessment process.

Essentially, validation is about identifying which parts of an RTO's assessment process are effective and which need improvement. With a proper grasp of its key aspects, validation becomes less daunting.

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 primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.

The next validation ensures that assessments are conducted per 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 we mentioned earlier and in our past blogs, validation consists of two parts: (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 focuses on the implementation side, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.

How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

Having distinguished between the two types of validation, let’s dive into the details of assessment tool validation.

Ideal Times to 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 have to wait for the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources right away to ensure they are ready for students.

However, there are additional reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation also when you:

- updating your resources
- your 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 applies a risk-based regulation approach, expecting RTOs to do regular risk assessments. Hence, student complaints about learning resources are a good reason for assessment tool validation.

Which Training Products to Validate?

It's crucial to remember this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs should validate resources for each unit.

Assessment Tool Validation: Required Resources

Instructional Resources

Given that you are validating your assessment tools, you will need the complete array of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – start with this document. It illustrates which assessment items address unit requirements, making validation quicker.

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 – also verify if instructions for assessors are sufficient and if clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. 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.

Panel for Validation

Clause 1.11 defines the requirements for validation panel members, stating validation can involve one or more individuals. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to be present, sometimes including industry experts.

As a group, your validation panel must possess:

Up-to-date vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated

Recent knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Either one of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its updated version

Assessment 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 is advantageous for both the validation process and documentation. It aids in viewing 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.
It also acts as evidence that you have validated your resources prior to student use.

Although ASQA does not recommend or require a particular template for assessment tool validation, many templates are available online. These tools typically have validators review the tools in their entirety to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.

Principles of Assessment Checklist 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 Guidelines Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Examine?

As mentioned in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s crucial that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Key Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?

Flexibility – Are different options available 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 every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?

Evidence Key Rules

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 the evidence adequate to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool ensure that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Are the assessment tools updated to reflect current units of competency and industry practices?

Even though these are often covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle with these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that do not meet some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:

Show What You Mean

Take note of the verbs used in the unit requirements and make sure they are addressed by the assessment item. For instance, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires students to:

Complete 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 nappies

prepare bottles, feed babies from bottles, and clean equipment

prepare solid foods and feed babies

respond to baby signs and cues appropriately

prepare infants for sleep and settle them

monitor and encourage physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable 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.

Mind 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.
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.

Full Compliance or Not Competent

Mind the lists. In the previous example, 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?
Provide More Detail

Every assessment item must include clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Consequently, ensure your instructions are clear and not confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What kind Assessment validation Australia of information can be included in a work package?
What sort of information can be included in a work package?

The answer may include:

Mandatory resources

Relevant costs

Activity timeframe

Assigned duties and responsibilities

When an assessment item requires multiple answers, indicate the number of answers needed from a student. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected 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 pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Possible answers may include, but are not limited to:

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

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

People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration

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

Seeing these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees mean you must wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.