Mastering Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
Mastering Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
RTOs face many tasks after registration, such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, but validation is typically the most daunting.
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.
Clause 1.8 of the 2015 SRTOs indicates that RTOs need to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted in accordance with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
According to the standards, two types of validation must be conducted.
The initial type of assessment validation ensures compliance with the training package assessment requirements within your RTO's scope.
The second validation type ensures that assessments adhere to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
It indicates that validation occurs both before and after the assessment. The focus here is on the first type: assessment tool validation.
Defining the Two Types of Assessment Validation
The Basics of 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, often referred to as pre-assessment validation or verification, deals with ensuring all unit requirements are addressed as per the first part of the clause, ensuring complete workbook compliance.
Conversely, post-assessment validation focuses on the implementation side, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
In this article, we will emphasize assessment tool validation.
Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
When Should You Conduct Assessment Tool Validation?
Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, assessment tool validation should be conducted before students use them.
There's no need to wait for your next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are suitable for student use.
Nonetheless, there are other reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- you update resources
- add new training products on scope
- course is reviewed by you against training product updates
- when learning resources are identified as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA's risk-based approach to regulation necessitates regular risk assessments by RTOs. If there are student complaints about learning resources, it's an opportune time for assessment tool validation.
What Training Products Should Be Validated?
Recall, this type of validation aims to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs must validate each unit's resources.
Assessment Tool Validation: Required Resources
Learning Resources
To validate assessment tools, you need the complete suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document to review. It indicates which assessment items meet unit requirements, aiding in faster validation.
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 – ensure that instructions for assessors are sufficient and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. 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.
Panel of Validators
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.
The members of your validation panel must collectively have:
Current vocational competencies and relevant 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 credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its equivalent
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 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 also serves as evidence that you have validated your resources before students use them.
ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are available online. These tools generally have validators review the tools as a whole to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Guide 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.
We recommend a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that correspond to them. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?
As stated in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you must ensure your assessment tools allow trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.
Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment process ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?
Flexibility – Are different options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on individual needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it How to validate assessment tools Australia is supposed to assess? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment achieve the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently make decisions on skill competence?
Evidence Basic Rules
Validity – Is the evidence verifying 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 sufficient to ensure 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 based on current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Although these are frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle to meet these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that do not address some unit requirements, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:
Live Up to Your Words
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:
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:
nappy changing
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment
solid food prep and feeding babies
respond suitably to baby signs and cues
prepare babies for sleep and settle them
monitor and foster physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate for the age
Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly fulfill the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.
Be Mindful of 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.
Full Compliance or Not Competent
Pay attention to lists. As mentioned earlier, 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?
Can You Be More Specific?
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 might be included in a work package?
Answers may include:
Mandatory resources
Applicable costs
Activity duration
Allocated roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item demands multiple answers, specify the number of answers required from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence obtained is valid.
The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those asking for multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse both students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental concern in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolation of work area, engineering, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and enables assessors to accurately judge competence.
Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” However, with these guarantees, you must wait for an audit before they help rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it's better to take a safe and compliant approach.