The Guide to Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments

The Guide to Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

Among the numerous obligations RTOs face post-registration—annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, marketing compliance—validation is often the most dreaded.

While we've discussed validation in multiple articles, let's return to the basics. ASQA defines validation as a quality check of the assessment process.

Validation involves verifying which areas of an RTO's assessment process are correct and highlighting where improvements are needed. Understanding its key components makes the task less intimidating.

As per the 2015 SRTOs Clause 1.8, RTOs are required to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, meet training package requirements and follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

According to the standards, two types of validation are necessary.

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

The second type of validation verifies 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.

Defining the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Essence of Assessment Validation

As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blog entries, validation is divided into two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Assessment tool validation, sometimes called pre-assessment validation, focuses on ensuring all unit requirements are met, in line with the first part of the clause, ensuring complete workbook compliance.

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.

Here, we will concentrate on assessment tool validation.

Methods for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.

Timing for Conducting 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, any time you obtain new learning resources, assessment tool validation should be completed before students use them.

You don't have to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Validate new resources right away to ensure they’re appropriate for student use.

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

- resources get updated
- your new training products get added on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during your risk assessment

The Australian Skills Quality Authority employs a risk-based approach for regulating RTOs and expects regular risk assessments. Therefore, student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.

What Training Products Should Be Validated?

Keep in mind, this validation ensures that all learning resources comply before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.

Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need

Academic Resources

For validating your assessment tools, you will need the full array of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – the first document to check. It indicates which assessment items align with unit requirements, making validation faster.

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 – 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.

Assessment Validation Panel

Clause 1.11 outlines the criteria for validation panel members, specifying that validation can be done by one or more people. RTOs typically require all trainers and assessors to participate, occasionally inviting industry experts.

Collectively, your validation panel should have:

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

Current expertise 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 next version

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.
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.
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 available online. These tools typically have validators review the tools in their entirety to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.

Assessment Principles Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

While templates of this kind simplify validation, they can introduce judgment errors due to a lack of space for comments on each assessment item.

It is highly advisable to use a more detailed template for evaluating each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Checked?

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

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

Flexibility – Does the assessment provide different options to demonstrate competence according to individual needs and preferences?

Validity – Does the assessment evaluate what it is meant to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment produce the same results each time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions on skill competence?

Fundamental Rules of Evidence

Validity – Is the evidence showing 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 sufficient to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool ensure that the work belongs to the candidate?

Currency – Are the assessment tools in line with current units of competency and contemporary 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:

Live Up to Your Words

Pay attention to the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure 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 tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication per service and regulatory requirements:

nappy changing

bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment

prepare solid food and feed babies

respond suitably to infant signs and cues

settle infants for sleep and prepare them

monitor and foster physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate for the age

Getting students to describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.

Look Out for 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.

Complete Compliance or Not Competent

Observe the lists. As noted above, if students are asked to 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?
Could You Be Clearer?

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 kinds of information can be included in a work package?

Answers might include:

Obligatory resources

Associated costs

Activity length

Assigned roles and responsibilities

If an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify the number of answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.

The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those requiring multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question 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 – work area isolation, engineering, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering controls

People – isolation, engineering, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, 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.

Given these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees require waiting for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s better to take website a safe and compliant route.