Mastering Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
Mastering Assessment Validation: How to Validate 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.
Even though we've covered validation in depth, let’s revisit its definition. ASQA defines validation as a quality review of the assessment process.
Validation is the process of confirming accurate areas in an RTO's assessment process and pinpointing elements for improvement. With a correct understanding of its components, it’s less daunting.
As stated in Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards specify that two types of validation need to be performed.
The initial type of assessment validation ensures compliance with the training package assessment requirements within your RTO's scope.
The subsequent validation confirms that assessments are conducted according to 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.
The Two Types of Assessment Validation Explained
Assessment Validation Unpacked
As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is split into two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Pre-assessment validation or assessment tool validation focuses on the first part of the clause, ensuring that all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are entirely compliant.
On the other hand, post-assessment validation deals with implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.
How Assessment Tool Validation is Conducted
Now that we’ve differentiated the two types of validation, let’s examine assessment tool validation in detail.
Appropriate Times for Assessment Tool Validation
The aim of assessment tool validation is to ensure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are covered by your assessment tools.
Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.
No need to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they’re suitable for students.
Still, this isn't the only reason for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- resources get updated
- new training products are added to your scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- your learning resources get 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.
Selecting Training Products for Validation
Keep in mind, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Getting Started with Assessment Tool Validation: Resources Needed
Educational Resources
To conduct assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite 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. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are adequate. This is a frequent gap.
Assessor guide/marking guide – verify that instructions for assessors are comprehensive and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are present. Clear benchmarks are key to reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – may include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate these to ensure they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Board
Clause 1.11 specifies the requirements for validation panel members. It states validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Overall, your validation panel should have:
Relevant vocational competencies and industry skills for the unit being validated
Up-to-date 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 its successor
Validation form/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 aids in both the validation process and documentation. It helps visualize how each assessment item meets 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.
It can also serve as proof that you have validated your resources before allowing students to use them.
ASQA does not provide a specific template for assessment tool validation, read more but numerous templates can be found online. These tools often have validators look at the tools as a whole to verify if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment 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.
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 Directions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Check?
As outlined in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Essential Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access guaranteed for everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various ways to demonstrate competence according to different needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for evaluating the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment give consistent results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?
Evidence Key Rules
Validity – Does the evidence prove that the candidate possesses 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 there enough evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool verifying that the work belongs to the candidate?
Currency – Are the assessment tools based on current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?
Despite these being frequently addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, heaps of tools still have problems with these requirements.
To avoid using learning resources that do not address all unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Act on Your Words
Take note of 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 asks 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:
diaper changing
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
prepare solid food and feed infants
respond properly to baby signs and cues
prepare babies for sleep and soothe them
monitor and foster 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.
Be Cautious with 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 suffice.
All or Not Competent
Mind the lists. In the previous example, 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?
Be Clearer
Every assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, ensure your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What information can be included in a work package?
The answer can include:
Required materials
Associated costs
Time required for activities
Appointed roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item calls for multiple answers, indicate the number of answers a student needs to provide. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered is valid.
This also applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that ask for multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers could include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolation of work area, engineering, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to judge competence accurately.
Given these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” But such guarantees require you to wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.