Assessment Validation: A Beginner's Guide to Validating Assessments
Assessment Validation: A Beginner's Guide to Validating Assessments
Blog Article
RTOs have numerous responsibilities post-registration, including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and ensuring marketing compliance. Among these tasks, validation often stands out as particularly challenging.
Even though we’ve written about validation several times, let's revisit its definition. ASQA calls validation a quality review of the assessment process.
Validation is the process of confirming accurate areas in an RTO's assessment process and pinpointing elements for improvement. With a correct understanding of its components, it’s 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.
According to the standards, RTOs must conduct 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 second kind of validation ensures assessments are carried out in accordance with the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This shows that validation happens pre- and post-assessment. We will focus on the first type—assessment tool validation.
What are the Two Types of Assessment Validation?
Understanding Assessment Validation
As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is split into two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Assessment tool validation, sometimes called pre-assessment validation, focuses on ensuring all unit requirements are met, in line with the first part of the clause, ensuring complete 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.
Our focus in this article will be on assessment tool validation.
Steps for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Now that we understand the two types of validation, let’s explore the details of assessment tool validation.
When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done
Assessment tool validation aims to verify that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are covered 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 need to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.
Nonetheless, there are other reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- resources are updated
- new training products are added by you on scope
- your course includes training product updates
- your learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach means RTOs should carry out regular risk assessments. If students complain about learning resources, it's an ideal time for assessment tool validation.
Selecting Training Products for Validation
Remember, this validation aims to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs are expected to validate all unit resources.
Key Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Academic Resources
Given that you are validating your assessment tools, you will need the complete array of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document to review. It indicates which assessment items meet unit requirements, aiding in faster validation.
Learner/student workbook – assess its appropriateness for use as an assessment tool. Verify clear instructions and adequate answer fields. This is often a gap.
Assessor guide/marking guide – ensure sufficient instructions for assessors and clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are vital 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.
Assessment Validation Panel
Clause 1.11 specifies the requirements for validation panel members. It states validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
As a group, your validation panel must possess:
Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated
Current knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning
Either of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an equivalent successor
Assessment 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.
Using a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It facilitates seeing how each assessment item matches 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 provides documentation that you have validated your resources before students use them.
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.
Assessment Principles Form Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While templates of this kind simplify validation, they can introduce judgment errors due to a lack of space for comments on each assessment item.
We recommend a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that correspond to them. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Review?
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.
Core Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?
Flexibility – Are multiple options available in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for evaluating the required website 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?
Evidence Core Rules
Validity – Does the evidence prove 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 there sufficient evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool verifying that the work belongs to the candidate?
Currency – Are the assessment tools reflective of current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?
Despite being regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still have issues with these requirements.
To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to adhere to these guidelines:
Act on Your Words
Pay close 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:
Carry out 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 in accordance with service and regulatory requirements:
change diapers
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment
solid foods preparation and feeding babies
appropriately respond to baby signs and cues
prepare and settle infants for sleep
monitor and support physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate 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.
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.
Notice 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 is not sufficient.
All or No Competence
Observe the lists. As mentioned 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?
Give More Specificity
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 kind of information can be included in a work package?
The answer can include:
Required resources
Applicable expenses
Time frame for activities
Allocated duties and responsibilities
If an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify 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 requiring multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering
People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Given these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees require waiting for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.