The Fundamentals of Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
The Fundamentals of Assessment Validation: How to Validate 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.
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 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.
As per Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs are required to ensure that their assessment systems, including RPL, meet training package requirements and are conducted following the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards require RTOs to perform two types of validation.
The first validation type ensures your RTO's assessments comply 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.
Therefore, validation is conducted both before and after the assessment. This article emphasizes 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, also known as pre-assessment validation or verification, pertains to the first part of the clause, focusing on ensuring all unit requirements are met and that all 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.
For this piece, our emphasis will be on assessment tool validation.
Guidelines for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Having reviewed the two types of validation, let’s dive into the specifics of assessment tool validation.
When is Assessment Tool Validation Conducted?
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, you must perform assessment tool validation before student use.
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.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- resources are updated by you
- when new training products are added on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources are identified 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.
What Training Products Need Validation?
Bear in mind, this validation aims to ensure compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs are required to validate all unit resources.
Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need
Educational Materials
Since you are validating your assessment tools, you will require the entire suite 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 – 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 – verify that instructions for assessors are comprehensive and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are present. Clear benchmarks are key to reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – these could be checklists, registers, and templates created separately 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 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.
Collectively, your validation panel must have:
Relevant vocational competencies and industry skills applicable to the unit being validated
Current expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its replacement
Assessment 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.
A validation tool assists in both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies identifying how each assessment item corresponds to 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 serves as documentation that you have validated your resources prior to student use.
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 Checklist 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 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 Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Check?
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.
Assessment Basic Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunity and access ensured for everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different 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 yield the same results every time, no matter 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 there adequate evidence 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 – Do the assessment tools align with current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?
Despite these being frequently addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, heaps of tools still have problems with these requirements.
To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Walk the Talk
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:
Carry out 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:
nappy changing
prepare bottle, bottle feed babies and clean equipment
solid food preparation and feeding babies
appropriately respond to baby signs and cues
prepare babies for sleep and settle them
monitor and foster age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly meet the unit requirement. Unless the unit requirement is meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Plurals Matter!
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 enough.
Full or Not Competent
Pay attention to lists. As noted earlier, if students perform only half the tasks listed, it’s non-compliant. Each assessment item must address all requirements, or the Validate assessment tools Australia 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?
Answers might include:
Essential resources
Associated expenses
Time assigned 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.
This also applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that ask for multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental concern in the work area and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers can include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administration
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Considering these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” But such guarantees require you to wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.