Assessment Validation Overview: Steps to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation Overview: Steps to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
Upon receiving registration, RTOs must manage various responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, with validation being a notably arduous task.
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 involves verifying which areas of an RTO's assessment process are correct and highlighting where improvements are needed. Understanding its key components makes the task less intimidating.
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 first validation type ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements in your scope.
The second type of validation verifies assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This indicates validation occurs before and after the assessment process. We will focus on the first type: assessment tool validation.
Breaking Down the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Understanding Assessment Validation
As noted earlier and in our earlier blog entries, validation is split into two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Assessment tool validation, also known as pre-assessment validation or verification, pertains to the first part of the clause, focusing on ensuring all unit requirements are met and that all workbooks are fully compliant.
In contrast, post-assessment validation focuses on the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Our focus in this article will be on assessment tool validation.
Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Having outlined the two types of validation, it’s time to dive into assessment tool validation.
Timing of Assessment Tool Validation
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, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.
There's no necessity to wait for the next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are appropriate for student use.
Nonetheless, there are other reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- you update your resources
- new training products are added to your scope
- your course gets reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach to regulation means RTOs must conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources signal the need for assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
Do not forget, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
What Do You Need for Assessment Tool Validation?
Educational Resources
Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – this is the initial document to review. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, speeding up 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 – verify that instructions for assessors are comprehensive and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are included. Clear benchmarks are key to 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.
Assessment Validation Team
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.
The members of your validation panel must collectively have:
Relevant vocational competencies and up-to-date industry skills for the unit being validated
Up-to-date knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning
Any of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its equivalent
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.
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.
At the same time, it acts as documentation that you have validated your resources before allowing student use.
ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates can be found online. These tools often have validators review the tools as a whole to verify if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Though these templates simplify validation, they can lead to judgment errors due to 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 Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Check?
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.
Key Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment process provide equal opportunity and access to everyone?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is supposed 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?
Essential Rules of Evidence
Validity – Does the evidence demonstrate 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 ensuring that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools in line with current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?
Although these are commonly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, a lot of tools still fail to meet these requirements.
To avoid using learning resources that do not address all unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Walk the Talk
Focus on the verbs used in the unit requirements and make sure they are addressed by the assessment item. For instance, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement asks students to:
Perform 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:
diapering
bottle preparation, feeding babies from bottles, and cleaning equipment
solid food preparation and feeding babies
respond appropriately to baby signs and cues
settle babies for sleep and prepare them
monitor and encourage physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable for the age
Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months doesn’t fulfill 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.
Pay attention to the numbers. In our CHCECE032 get more info 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.
Full or Not Competent
Mind the lists. In the previous example, if students 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?
Can You Clarify Further?
Every assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Consequently, 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?
Answers may include:
Needed resources
Associated expenses
Duration of activities
Specified roles 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.
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:
Name a hazard and/or environmental concern in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond 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.