A Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments in Practice

A Guide to Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments in Practice

Blog Article

After gaining registration, RTOs need to monitor several aspects including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, with validation being a major concern.

Even though we’ve written about validation several times, let's revisit its definition. ASQA calls validation a quality review of the assessment process.

Essentially, validation is about identifying which parts of an RTO's assessment process are effective and which need improvement. With a proper grasp of its key aspects, validation becomes less daunting.

The SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8 specifies that RTOs need to ensure compliance of their assessment systems, including RPL, with training package requirements, following the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards necessitate conducting 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 second validation type ensures that assessments adhere to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

It suggests that validation takes place before and after the assessment. This article focuses on the first type—assessment tool validation.

The Fundamentals of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Essence of Assessment Validation

As mentioned earlier and in one of our previous blog posts, validation is split into two stages: (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.

In post-assessment validation, the emphasis is on implementation, ensuring that Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments as per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.

How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

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

When is Assessment Tool Validation Conducted?

Assessment tool validation is intended to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.

Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.

You don’t need to wait until the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.

Yet, this is not the only occasion to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:

- update your resources
- your scope includes new training products
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- you identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment

ASQA's risk-based regulation approach means RTOs should perform regular risk assessments. If students complain about learning resources, it's a perfect time for assessment tool validation.

Which Training Products Should You Validate?

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

Key Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Teaching Materials

Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite 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 – 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 – check that instructions for assessors are adequate and that there are clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are essential for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – might include checklists, registers, and templates created apart from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they fit the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Validation Group

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.

In total, your validation panel must have:

Relevant vocational competencies and industry skills for the unit being validated

Recent knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the equivalent successor

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.
Additionally, it can provide proof that you have validated your resources before students use them.

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.

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

Though these templates make validation easier, they often result in judgment errors due to limited space for comments 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 Assessment Directions Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Look For?

As discussed in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Key Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment 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 is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for evaluating the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment achieve consistent results every time, no matter click here who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?

Evidence Key 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 ensuring 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 commonly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, a lot of tools still fail to meet these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that overlook some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:

Practice Your Teachings

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 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 changing

prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment

prepare solid food and feed infants

respond properly to baby signs and cues

prepare and settle infants for sleep

monitor and encourage 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.

Notice the 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 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.

All Requirements 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?
Be More Specific

Every assessment item must have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, make sure 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?

Possible answers could include:

Necessary materials

Associated costs

Time required for activities

Allocated roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item requires multiple answers, indicate the number of answers needed from a student. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.

The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that ask for more than one answer simultaneously. These can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:

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

Possible answers may include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering

People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, use of engineering controls

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

Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and enables assessors to accurately judge competence.

Seeing these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But such guarantees mean you must wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.