Key Insights into Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments
Key Insights into Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments
Blog Article
Registration brings RTOs many duties like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, yet validation often proves to be the most feared.
We have numerous articles on validation, but let's go back to the term itself. ASQA defines validation as a quality review of the assessment process.
In other words, validation identifies which elements of an RTO's assessment process are done right and which need improvement. A proper understanding of its key components makes the task less daunting.
Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015 mandates that RTOs ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
According to the standards, RTOs must conduct two types of validation.
The initial assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements.
The second validation type ensures that assessments adhere to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This shows that validation happens pre- and post-assessment. We will focus on the first type—assessment tool validation.
Defining the Two Types of Assessment Validation
The Basics 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.
Assessment tool validation, often referred to as pre-assessment validation or verification, deals with ensuring all unit requirements are addressed as per the first part of the clause, ensuring complete workbook compliance.
On the implementation side, post-assessment validation ensures Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.
The Process of Assessment Tool Validation
After reviewing the two types of validation, let’s explore the specifics of assessment tool validation.
Ideal Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation seeks to ensure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them.
There's no need to wait for your next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are suitable for student use.
Still, this isn't the only reason for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- you update your resources
- new training products get added on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources get identified 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.
Which Training Products to Validate?
Bear in mind, this validation is meant to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs are required to validate all unit resources.
Resources Required for Assessment Tool Validation
Training Materials
Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document to review. It indicates which assessment items meet unit requirements, aiding in faster validation.
Learner/student workbook – check its suitability as an assessment tool during validation. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.
Assessor guide/marking guide – ensure that instructions for assessors are sufficient and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are essential 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.
Assessment 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.
Collectively, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills applicable to the unit being validated
Current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the successor version
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.
Having a validation tool aids both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies seeing how each assessment item maps 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.
Additionally, it serves as documented proof that you have validated your resources before student use.
While ASQA does not recommend or require a specific template for assessment tool validation, numerous templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to examine the tools as a whole to see if website they meet the principles of assessment.
Assessment Principles Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While these templates facilitate the validation process, they can result in judgment errors due to the limited space for comments on each assessment item.
We highly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Tools 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.
Essential Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment evaluating 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?
Key Rules of Evidence
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 the evidence adequate to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool confirming that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools updated to reflect current units of competency and 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 employing learning resources that miss some unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Practice Your Teachings
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:
diaper change
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
solid foods preparation and feeding babies
respond to infant signs and cues appropriately
prepare babies for sleep and settle them
monitor and foster physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate for the age
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.
Watch Out for 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.
Total or Not Competent
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 Clearer?
Each assessment item must include clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Hence, ensure your instructions are clear and not confusing for students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What information can be included in a work package?
Possible answers include:
Necessary materials
Pertinent costs
Length of activities
Assigned roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item demands multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered is valid.
This is also true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that require more than one answer at once. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental concern in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering
People – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to judge competence accurately.
Seeing these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” However, with such guarantees, you must wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.