Assessment Validation Simplified: How to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation Simplified: How to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

Post-registration, RTOs are tasked with many responsibilities including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, and validation is often the most challenging.

Although our articles cover validation extensively, let’s redefine it. According to ASQA, validation is a quality review of the assessment process.

Essentially, validation is about identifying which parts of an RTO's assessment process are effective and which need improvement. With a proper grasp of its key aspects, validation becomes less daunting.

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

The standards require RTOs to perform two types of validation.

The primary type of assessment validation verifies that your RTO's assessment meets the training package requirements.

The next type of validation confirms assessments are carried out following 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.

An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Assessment Validation: An Explanation

As noted earlier and in previous blog posts, validation comprises two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Assessment tool validation, also called pre-assessment validation, pertains to ensuring all unit requirements are addressed, as outlined in the first part of the clause, ensuring total workbook compliance.

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.

Our focus here will be 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

Assessment tool validation aims to verify that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are covered by your assessment tools.

Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation should be carried out before students use them.

You don’t need to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.

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

- your resources get updated
- adding new training products on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- identifying your learning resources 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.

Determining Training Products for Validation

It's crucial to remember this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs should validate resources for each unit.

What You Need for Assessment Tool Validation

Learning Materials

To validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – the primary document to check. It reveals which assessment items align with unit requirements, expediting validation.

Learner/student workbook – check its suitability as an assessment tool during validation. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.

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 might include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Ensure they are appropriate for the assessment task and meet unit requirements.

Validation Team

Clause 1.11 outlines the requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be done by one or more people. Typically, RTOs require all trainers and assessors to attend and may invite industry experts.

Together, your validation panel should possess:

Up-to-date vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated

Recent knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning

Either of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its replacement

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 with the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to view 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.

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.

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

While templates like these make validation easier, they also allow for judgment errors since there is little room for commenting 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 Requires Checking?

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.

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 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 each time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions on skill competence?

Rules of Evidence

Validity – Is the evidence demonstrating 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 – Is the assessment tool proving 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 frequently addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, a lot of tools still fail to meet these requirements.

To avoid employing learning resources that fail to meet all unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Live Up to Your Words

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 activities at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication in accordance with service and regulatory requirements:

changing nappies

prepare bottles, feed babies from bottles, and clean equipment

prepare solid food and feed babies

respond to baby signs and cues appropriately

prepare babies for sleep and settle them

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

Having students describe the process of changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended 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.
Mind the numbers. In our 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 isn’t sufficient.

Entire 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?
Add More Specificity

Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Hence, it’s important that your instructions do not confuse 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?

The answer may include:

Compulsory resources

Applicable expenses

Activity timeframe

Allocated duties and responsibilities

When an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.

This applies equally to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that require more than one answer at the same time. These can confuse students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:

Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Possible answers can include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolation of work area, engineering, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering controls

People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, use of engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering, administration

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and enables assessors to accurately judge 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 more info a safe and compliant route.