Assessment Validation Made Simple: Guide to Validating Assessments

Assessment Validation Made Simple: Guide to Validating Assessments

Blog Article

RTOs must handle various tasks post-registration, such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, but validation usually presents the biggest challenge.

Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes 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.

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

The standards require RTOs to perform two types of validation.

The first type of assessment validation checks that your RTO's assessment aligns with the training package requirements in your scope.

The next validation type confirms assessments are conducted following 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

What Does Assessment Validation Mean?

As discussed before and in previous blogs, validation includes two processes: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Assessment tool validation, known as pre-assessment validation, pertains to the first part of the clause, focusing on meeting all unit requirements and ensuring total workbook compliance.

Conversely, post-assessment validation pertains to the 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.

Steps for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

With a clear understanding of the two types of validation, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.

When is Assessment Tool Validation Conducted?

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, you must perform assessment tool validation before student use.

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

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

- resources are updated
- add new training products on scope
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- 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.

What Training Products Need Validation?

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

Key Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Educational Resources

Since you are validating your assessment tools, you will require the entire suite 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 – 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 – 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 – 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.

Panel 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.

As a whole, your validation panel must have:

Vocational competencies and current industry skills applicable to the unit being validated

Current knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning

Any of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its successor

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 in both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies identifying how each assessment item corresponds to 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 serves as documentation that you have validated your resources prior to 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.

Principles of Assessment Template 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.

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 Guidelines Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Inspection?

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.

Assessment Key Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment process provide equal opportunity and access to everyone?

Flexibility – Are different options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on individual needs and preferences?

Validity – Is the assessment evaluating here 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?

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 sufficient evidence to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool prove that the work is the candidate’s own?

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

Although these are frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle to meet these requirements.

To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Live Up to Your Words

Pay 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:

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 infants

respond to baby signs and cues suitably

settle infants for sleep and prepare them

monitor and support physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate for the age

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.

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.
Mind 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 doesn’t suffice.

All 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 types of information can be included in a work package?

Possible answers may include:

Needed resources

Associated expenses

Activity duration

Appointed roles and responsibilities

If an assessment item calls for several answers, specify the number of answers needed from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered is valid.

This is true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions requiring more than one answer at the same time. These can confuse students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:

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

Answers can 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 – isolating, engineering, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls

Equipment or machinery – isolation, 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.