A Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments in Practice
A Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments in Practice
Blog Article
Once RTOs receive registration, they must oversee many aspects such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance. Of all these duties, validation is frequently the most daunting.
Though we've written extensively on validation, let's clarify it again. ASQA describes it as a quality assessment review.
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 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 type of assessment validation verifies that your RTO's assessment meets the training package requirements.
The second type of validation verifies assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
Thus, we understand that validation is done before and after the assessment. This article highlights the first type: assessment tool validation.
Understanding the Two Types of Assessment Validation
An Introduction to Assessment Validation
As mentioned earlier and in one of our previous blog posts, validation is split into two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, is concerned with the first part of the clause, which ensures all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are fully compliant.
In post-assessment validation, the emphasis is on implementation, ensuring that Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments as per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.
How to 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 addressed by your assessment tools.
Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.
You don’t need to wait until the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.
However, there are additional reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation also when you:
- resources are updated by you
- your new training products get added on scope
- your course gets reviewed against training product updates
- when 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?
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.
Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need
Course Materials
For validating your assessment tools, you will need the full array of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document you should look at. It highlights which assessment items meet unit requirements, accelerating validation.
Learner/student workbook – ensure it's appropriate as an assessment tool. Check if the instructions are clear and answer fields are adequate. This is a frequent issue.
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 – may consist of checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Assessment Validation Panel
Clause 1.11 specifies the criteria for validation panel members, indicating that validation can involve one or more persons. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Your validation panel must, as a group, possess:
Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated
Recent knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
One of these training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its successor
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.
Having a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It makes it simpler to see how each assessment item aligns with 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 can act as evidence 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.
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.
It is advisable to use a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Below is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Check?
As discussed in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment accommodate different options to demonstrate competence according to various 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?
Evidence Basic Rules
Validity – Does the 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 sufficient to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool confirming that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Do the assessment tools reflect current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Even though these are frequently addressed find it here in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, a lot of tools still fail to meet these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Be Consistent with Your Teachings
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 actions at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication as per service and regulatory requirements:
nappy change
bottle preparation, bottle-feeding infants, and cleaning equipment
solid food preparation and feeding babies
appropriately respond to baby signs and cues
prepare and settle infants for sleep
monitor and foster age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
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.
Pay Attention to 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 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 is not sufficient.
All or Nothing
Observe the lists. As mentioned 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?
Can You Clarify Further?
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 sort of information can be included in a work package?
Answers might include:
Necessary resources
Relevant costs
Time allocated for activities
Appointed roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item calls for several answers, indicate the number of answers required from a student. This way, your assessment remains 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 workplace 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 – elimination, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to judge competence accurately.
Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” But these guarantees mean you have to wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.