Important Aspects of Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments

Important Aspects of Assessment Validation: How 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.

Even though we’ve written about validation several times, let's revisit its definition. ASQA calls validation a quality review of the assessment process.

In essence, validation confirms which parts of an RTO's assessment process are correct and pinpoints elements for improvement. With a solid grasp of its key components, validation becomes manageable.

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.

The standards necessitate conducting two types of validation.

The first validation type ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements in your scope.

The next validation type confirms assessments are conducted following the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

Thus, validation is performed both prior to and following the assessment. The first type, assessment tool validation, is the focus here.

What are the Two Types of Assessment Validation?

An Introduction to Assessment Validation

As discussed earlier and in our prior blogs, validation involves two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, emphasizing the need to meet all unit requirements and ensuring all workbooks are 100% compliant.

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.

Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.

Guidelines for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Now that we’ve differentiated the two types of validation, let’s examine assessment tool validation in detail.

When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done

Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are included in your assessment tools.

Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, assessment tool validation should be conducted before students use them.

You don't have to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources as soon as you get them to ensure they’re suitable for students.

Still, this isn't the sole reason for conducting this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:

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

The risk-based regulatory approach of ASQA requires RTOs to perform regular risk assessments. Student complaints about learning resources indicate it's time for assessment tool validation.

Choosing Training Products for Validation

Remember, this type of validation is to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs should validate all unit resources.

Key Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Training Materials

For validating your assessment tools, you will need the full 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 – during validation, check if it's suitable as an assessment tool. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common gap.

Assessor guide/marking guide – ensure that instructions for assessors are sufficient and clear benchmarks for each assessment item exist. Clear benchmarks are essential for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – these could be checklists, registers, and templates created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.

Panel for Validation

Clause 1.11 describes the requirements for validation panel members, indicating that validation can be performed by one or more persons. RTOs often require all trainers and assessors to attend, and sometimes industry experts are invited.

Your validation panel must, as a group, possess:

Vocational competencies and current industry skills that relate to the unit being validated

Up-to-date expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Either one of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an updated successor

Assessment validation instrument/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 benefits both the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to comprehend 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 serves as documented proof that you have validated your resources before 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 Form 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 Assessment Guidelines Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Inspect?

As highlighted in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it is essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Core Principles
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access provided to everyone in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Does the assessment offer multiple ways to show competence according to different needs and preferences?

Validity – Does the assessment test what it is meant to test? Is it a valid tool for assessing 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?

Core Rules of Evidence

Validity – Does the evidence show 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 confirm that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Are the assessment tools in line with current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?

Even though these are regularly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:

Demonstrate What You Teach

Pay close 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 changing

prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies, and clean equipment

prepare solid foods and feed babies

respond suitably to baby signs and cues

prepare and settle babies for rest

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

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.

Heed 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 read more of age. Having students complete the tasks listed twice on just 1 baby won’t cut it.
Pay attention to 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 isn’t enough.

Full 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?
Provide More Detail

Every assessment item must have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, make sure your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What details can be included in a work package?

Possible answers could include:

Compulsory resources

Pertinent costs

Time span of activities

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 issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Possible answers may include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering, PPE

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

People – isolation, engineering, administration

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering

Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.

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.