Key Insights into Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments

Key Insights into Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments

Blog Article

With registration, RTOs must juggle many responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, where validation often causes the most anxiety.

Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

Validation is essentially about verifying the accuracy of parts of an RTO's assessment process and spotting areas needing improvement. Understanding its key components can make it less daunting.

According to SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8, RTOs must ensure that their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

We are required by the standards to carry out two types of validation.

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

The second validation type ensures that assessments adhere to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

This means we validate assessments both before and after they are conducted. This article will cover the first type—assessment tool validation.

A Look at the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Basics of Assessment Validation

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

Assessment tool validation, also known as pre-assessment validation or verification, pertains to the first part of the clause, focusing on ensuring all unit requirements are met and that all workbooks are fully compliant.

Post-assessment validation, in contrast, is about ensuring the implementation side, where Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.

Methods for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Now that we understand the two types of validation, let’s explore the details of assessment tool validation.

When to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

The aim of assessment tool validation is to make sure 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.

There's no necessity to wait for the next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are appropriate for student use.

Nevertheless, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:

- resources are updated
- when new training products are added on scope
- reviewing your course against training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during the 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.

How to Choose Training Products for Validation

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

Teaching Materials

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

Mapping tool – this is the initial document to review. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, speeding up validation.

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

Assessor guide/marking guide – confirm that instructions for assessors are adequate and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are present. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – might include checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Assessment Validation Panel

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:

Relevant vocational competencies and up-to-date industry skills for the unit being validated

Recent expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its successor

Assessment validation document/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.
Simultaneously, it can serve as proof that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.

ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates can be found online. These tools often have validators review the tools as a whole to verify if they meet the principles of assessment.

Assessment Principles Template 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.

It is highly recommended to use a more detailed template for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to them. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Directions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Inspect?

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.

Assessment Core Principles
Fairness – Is the assessment process equitable and accessible to everyone?

Flexibility – Are various options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?

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

Reliability – Will the assessment achieve consistent results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?

Evidence Key Rules

Validity – Does the website evidence confirm 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 confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool confirm 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 employing learning resources that miss some unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Practice Your Teachings

Focus on 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 requires 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

prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies, and clean equipment

prepare solid foods and feed babies

appropriately respond to baby signs and cues

prepare babies for sleep and soothe them

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

Having students explain the process of nappy changing for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing 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.
Notice the numbers. In the CHCECE032 example, one unit requirement requires 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.

Full or Not Competent

Pay attention to lists. As mentioned earlier, 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 details can be included in a work package?

Answers can include:

Required materials

Associated expenses

Activity duration

Assigned functions and responsibilities

If an assessment item calls for several answers, specify the number of answers needed from a student. 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 issue in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Possible answers may include, but are not limited to:

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

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

People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls

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

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

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

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.