Assessment Validation Overview: Steps to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation Overview: Steps 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.
Despite our extensive coverage on validation, let's re-examine the term. ASQA states that validation is a quality check 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.
We are required by the standards to carry out two types of validation.
The primary type of assessment validation verifies that your RTO's assessment meets the training package requirements.
The second validation ensures assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
Thus, we understand that validation is done before and after the assessment. This article highlights the first type: assessment tool validation.
Breaking Down the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Assessment Validation Explained
As noted earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is divided into two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, is concerned with the first part of the clause, which ensures all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are fully compliant.
On the other side, post-assessment validation pertains to the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.
Steps for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Now that we’ve differentiated the two types of validation, let’s examine assessment tool validation in detail.
When Should You Conduct Assessment Tool Validation?
The purpose of assessment tool validation is to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.
Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them.
You don’t have to wait for the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources right away to ensure they are ready for students.
Yet, this is not the only occasion to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- you update your resources
- new training products are added to your scope
- course is reviewed by you against training product updates
- you identify your learning resources 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.
What Training Products Should Be Validated?
Do not forget, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
What You Need for Assessment Tool Validation
Learning Resources
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 – assess its appropriateness as an assessment tool. Confirm clear instructions and adequate answer fields. This is a common problem.
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 – may include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate these to ensure they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Panel of Validators
Clause 1.11 sets out the requirements for validation panel members, stating that validation can be conducted by one or more individuals. RTOs generally require all trainers and assessors to be involved, sometimes including industry experts.
As a whole, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills relevant to the unit being validated
Up-to-date knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an equivalent successor
Assessment 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.
Using a validation tool benefits both the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to comprehend 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.
Simultaneously, it can serve as proof that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.
While ASQA does not recommend or require a specific template for assessment tool validation, numerous templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to examine 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.
We recommend using a more detailed template to examine each unit requirement and the assessment items that correspond to them. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Checked?
As detailed in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it is crucial that your assessment tools enable trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Basic Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access ensured in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment accommodate different options to demonstrate competence according to various needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment assess what it is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment produce consistent results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Core 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 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 reflective of current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?
Although these are often addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.
To avoid using learning resources that do not address all unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Demonstrate What You Teach
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 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, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment
prepare solid food and feed babies
respond suitably to infant signs and cues
prepare and settle infants for rest
monitor and support age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly address the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Keep an Eye on 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
Observe the lists. As illustrated above, 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?
Could You Be More Specific?
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 type of information can be included in a work package?
The answer may include:
Obligatory resources
Relevant expenses
Activity duration
Designated roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item calls for multiple answers, indicate the number of answers a student needs to provide. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered is valid.
The same is true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those asking for multiple answers at once. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question get more info below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental concern in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers may include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge competence.
Seeing these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees mean you must wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.