A Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments in Practice

A Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments in Practice

Blog Article

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

Despite our extensive coverage on validation, let's re-examine the term. ASQA states that validation is a quality check of the assessment process.

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.

The standards necessitate conducting two types of validation.

The first type of validation ensures that your RTO's assessment meets the requirements of the training package within your scope.

The next validation ensures that assessments are conducted per the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

This implies that we validate both prior to and following the assessment. The focus of this article is on the first type: assessment tool validation.

The Basics of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Basics of 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, is concerned with the first part of the clause, which ensures all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are fully compliant.

Post-assessment validation, by contrast, focuses on implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This article will focus on assessment tool validation.

Guidelines for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Having distinguished between the two types of validation, let’s dive into the details of assessment tool validation.

Timing of Assessment Tool Validation

The goal of assessment tool validation is to make sure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.

Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation is necessary before 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 to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:

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

The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based regulatory approach means RTOs should conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources are a prime opportunity for assessment tool validation.

Training Products to Validate

It's important to remember this validation ensures that all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs need to validate resources for each unit.

Essential Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Academic Resources

Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – start with this document. It illustrates which assessment items address unit requirements, making validation quicker.

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 – 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 – 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.

Team for Validation

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.

Overall, 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

One of these training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its successor

Validation checklist/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 provide proof that you have validated your resources before students use them.

ASQA does not specify a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools in their entirety to ensure they meet the principles of assessment.

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

Although such templates ease validation, they can cause judgment errors since there’s minimal space for comments on each assessment item.

We strongly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to them. Here is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Directions Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Checking?

As check here outlined in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

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

Flexibility – Are different options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on individual 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 yield the same results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Core Rules of Evidence

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 there adequate evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Is the assessment tool verifying that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Are the assessment tools reflective of current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?

Even though these are often covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle with these requirements.

To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to 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 example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement asks students to:

Carry out 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 as per service and regulatory requirements:

changing diapers

prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment

solid foods preparation and feeding babies

respond to infant signs and cues appropriately

prepare and settle babies for rest

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

Having students explain changing nappies for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly address the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out 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.
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 No Competence

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?
Provide More Detail

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 can be included in a work package?

Answers may include:

Necessary resources

Relevant expenses

Duration of activities

Allocated duties and responsibilities

When an assessment item demands multiple answers, indicate 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 may include, but are not necessarily limited to:

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

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

People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration

Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to accurately judge student competence.

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.