All About Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments

All About Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

Among the numerous obligations RTOs face post-registration—annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, marketing compliance—validation is often the most dreaded.

Although we've written about validation many times, let’s redefine it. ASQA refers to validation as 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.

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

We must adhere to the standards by conducting two types of validation.

The first type of validation ensures that your RTO's assessment meets the requirements of the training package within your scope.

The following validation type ensures that assessments follow 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.

A Look at the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Exploring the Concept 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, also called pre-assessment validation, pertains to ensuring all unit requirements are addressed, as outlined in the first part of the clause, ensuring total 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.

This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.

Steps to Perform Assessment Tool Validation

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

Timing for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

The aim of assessment tool validation is to ensure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are covered 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 necessity to wait for the next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are appropriate for student use.

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

- resources are updated
- new training products are added to your scope
- review your course against training product updates
- identifying your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment

The Australian Skills Quality Authority employs a risk-based approach for regulating RTOs and expects regular risk assessments. Therefore, student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.

Training Products to Validate

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

Necessary Resources for Assessment Tool Validation

Study Resources

For validating your assessment tools, you will need the full array of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – this is the initial document to review. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, speeding up validation.

Learner/student workbook – ensure it's appropriate for use as an assessment tool. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a frequent gap.

Assessor guide/marking guide – also verify if instructions for assessors are sufficient and if clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are crucial for 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.

Team for Validation

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.

Overall, your validation panel should have:

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

Recent knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its updated version

Validation document/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.
Having a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It makes it simpler to see 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.
It also acts as evidence that you have validated your resources prior to student use.

Although ASQA does not recommend or require a specific template for assessment tool validation, numerous templates can be found online. These tools typically have validators examine the tools holistically to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.

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

While templates like these make validation easier, they also allow for judgment errors since there is little room for commenting on each assessment item.

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

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Guidelines Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Look For?

As mentioned in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you need to ensure that your assessment tools allow trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Fundamental Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunity and access ensured for everyone in the assessment process?

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

Validity – Is the assessment measuring what it is supposed to measure? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?

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

Core Rules of Evidence

Validity – Is the evidence proof that the candidate possesses 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 confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool ensure that the work belongs to the candidate?

Currency – Do the assessment tools align with current units of competency and up-to-date 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 using learning resources that do not address all unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:

Act on 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:

Perform 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:

diaper change

prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies, and clean equipment

prepare solid foods and feed babies

respond appropriately to baby signs and cues

prepare infants for sleep and settle them

monitor and encourage physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable for the age

Getting students to describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.

Pay Attention to 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. here 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 or Nothing

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 Clearer

Each assessment item must include clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Hence, ensure your instructions are clear and 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?

Possible answers may include:

Required resources

Appropriate costs

Time span of activities

Specified roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item demands multiple answers, indicate the number of answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected 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:

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 necessarily limited to:

Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, use of engineering controls

People – isolating, engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls

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

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

Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to accurately judge student 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.