Assessment Validation Unpacked: Guide to Validating Assessments

Assessment Validation Unpacked: Guide to Validating 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.

We've covered validation in many articles, but it's worth re-examining. ASQA defines it as a quality review of the assessment procedure.

In other words, validation identifies which elements of an RTO's assessment process are done right and which need improvement. A proper understanding of its key components makes the task 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.

The standards mandate two types of validation.

The first kind of assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessment adheres to the training package requirements within your scope.

The subsequent validation confirms that 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.

The Two Types of Assessment Validation Explained

The Fundamentals of Assessment Validation

As noted earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is divided 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.

Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.

Steps to Perform Assessment Tool Validation

Having discussed the two types of validation, let’s delve into assessment tool validation.

Ideal Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

Assessment tool validation seeks to ensure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.

This means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, assessment tool validation must be performed before they are used by students.

There's no requirement to wait for your next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources promptly to ensure they’re ready for students.

Still, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:

- your resources get updated
- new training products get added on scope
- reviewing your course against training product updates
- you identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment

ASQA's risk-based regulation approach requires RTOs to conduct regular risk assessments. Therefore, complaints from students about learning resources are a perfect time for assessment tool validation.

Training Products to Validate

Keep in mind, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.

Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation

Study Resources

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

Mapping tool – the initial document to investigate. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, helping speed up validation.

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 – 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 – could include checklists, registers, and templates developed apart from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.

Panel of Validators

Clause 1.11 details the requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be conducted by one or more people. Generally, RTOs require participation from all trainers and assessors and may include industry experts.

Collectively, your validation panel must have:

Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated

Recent knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning

One of these training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its equivalent

Validation tool/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 is beneficial for both the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to understand 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.

While ASQA does not have a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, many templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to review the tools as a whole to see if they meet the principles of assessment.

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

Although these templates ease the validation process, they can cause errors in judgment as there is minimal space for commenting on each assessment item.

It is highly recommended to use a more detailed template for inspecting each unit requirement more info and the assessment items that map to them. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Inspect?

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

Assessment Core Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Does the assessment provide different options to demonstrate competence according to individual 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 give the same results every time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Essential Rules of Evidence

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 there adequate evidence 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 based on current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?

Although these are often addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that do not address some unit requirements, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:

Act on Your Words

Observe the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure 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 activities at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication according to service and regulatory requirements:

diaper change

bottle preparation, bottle-feeding infants, and cleaning equipment

solid food prep and feeding infants

respond properly to baby signs and cues

settle babies for sleep and prepare them

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

Having students explain the process of nappy changing for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.

Plurals Matter!
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 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 isn’t enough.

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?
Be Clearer

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 sort of information can be included in a work package?

The answer may include:

Required resources

Applicable expenses

Time assigned for activities

Assigned 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 is also true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that require more than one answer at once. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example 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 – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE

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

People – isolating, engineering, administration

Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.

Considering these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” However, such guarantees require you to wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant approach.