What is Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
What is Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
With registration, RTOs must juggle many responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, where validation often causes the most anxiety.
While we've discussed validation in multiple articles, let's return to the basics. ASQA defines validation as 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.
The 2015 SRTOs Clause 1.8 requires RTOs to make sure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards specify that two types of validation need to be performed.
The initial validation type checks that your RTO's assessments align with the training package requirements.
The subsequent validation confirms that assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
Therefore, validation is conducted both before and after the assessment. This article emphasizes the first type: assessment tool validation.
What are the Two Types of Assessment Validation?
Breaking Down Assessment Validation
As discussed earlier and in our prior blogs, validation involves 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.
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.
For this piece, our emphasis will be on assessment tool validation.
Methods for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Having outlined the two types of validation, it’s time to dive into assessment tool validation.
When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done
Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed 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 validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources as soon as you get them to ensure they’re suitable for students.
Still, this isn't the only reason for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- resources are updated by you
- you add new training products on scope
- review your course against training product updates
- identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA applies a risk-based approach to regulate RTOs, expecting regular risk assessments. Hence, student complaints about learning resources are a good opportunity for assessment tool validation.
What Training Products Should Be Validated?
It's crucial to remember this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs should validate resources for each unit.
Essential Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Instructional 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 – 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 – might include checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Board
Clause 1.11 outlines the requirements for validation panel members, indicating validation can be done by one or more individuals. Typically, RTOs require all trainers and assessors to attend, occasionally inviting 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
One of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its future version
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.
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.
It also serves as evidence that you have validated your resources before students use them.
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 Guide 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 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 Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Check?
As highlighted in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it is essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Principles
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access guaranteed for everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer multiple ways to show competence according to different needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment test what it is meant to test? Is it a valid tool for assessing 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?
Basic Rules of Evidence
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 the evidence adequate to ensure 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 based on current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?
Although these are often addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that do not address some unit requirements, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:
Live Up to Your Words
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:
Perform 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:
change diapers
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
prepare solid foods and feed babies
appropriately respond to baby signs and cues
prepare and settle babies for rest
monitor and encourage age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students describe the process of changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended 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 meet the requirement.
Total or Not Competent
Mind the lists. In the previous example, if students 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?
Could You Be More Specific?
Every assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, make sure your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What information might be included in a work package?
The answer can include:
Needed resources
Associated expenses
Time assigned for activities
Assigned duties 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 requiring multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and select 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 – elimination, isolation, engineering controls
People – isolating, ASQA assessment validation guidelines use of engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, use of engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administration
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to judge competence accurately.
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.