Assessment Validation: A Comprehensive Guide to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation: A Comprehensive Guide 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.
Though we've written extensively on validation, let's clarify it again. ASQA describes it as a quality assessment review.
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.
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.
According to the standards, RTOs must conduct two types of validation.
The primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.
The second validation type ensures that assessments adhere to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This suggests we perform validation both before and after the assessment. This article will concentrate on the first type—assessment tool validation.
An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Understanding Assessment Validation
As discussed before and in previous blogs, validation includes two processes: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Assessment tool validation, often referred to as pre-assessment validation or verification, deals with ensuring all unit requirements are addressed as per 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.
In this write-up, we will focus on assessment tool validation.
Procedure for Assessment Tool Validation
Understanding the two types of validation allows us to delve into the specifics of assessment tool validation.
When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done
Assessment tool validation is intended to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.
Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them.
There's no need to wait for your next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are suitable for student use.
However, this isn't the only time to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- you update your resources
- add new training products on scope
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- your risk assessment includes identifying your learning resources as a risk
The risk-based regulatory approach of ASQA requires RTOs to perform regular risk assessments. Student complaints about learning resources indicate it's time for assessment tool validation.
Choosing Training Products for Validation
Remember, this type of validation is to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs should validate all unit resources.
Necessary Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Learning Materials
For validating your assessment tools, you will need the full array of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the initial document to investigate. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, helping speed up 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 – 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 – 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.
Assessment Validation Team
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.
Your validation panel, as a group, must possess:
Relevant vocational competencies and up-to-date industry skills for the unit being validated
Recent knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning
One of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next version
Assessment 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.
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 can also serve as proof that you have validated your resources before allowing students to 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.
Principles of Assessment Template 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 strongly suggest using a more detailed template to evaluate each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Look For?
As noted in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Core Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunity and access ensured for everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer multiple ways to show competence according to different needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is supposed to assess? Is it Validate assessment tools Australia a valid tool for measuring 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?
Evidence Rules
Validity – Is the evidence showing 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 regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools still struggle to meet these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that overlook some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:
Demonstrate What You Teach
Take note of 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 requires 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 nappies
prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment
solid food preparation and feeding babies
respond properly to infant signs and cues
prepare infants for sleep and soothe them
monitor and foster physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate for the age
Having students explain changing nappies for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly address the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out the tasks.
Be Cautious with 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 suffice.
Complete Compliance 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?
Can You Clarify Further?
Each assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important that your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What information can be included in a work package?
The answer could include:
Needed materials
Applicable expenses
Activity duration
Designated roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item demands multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered is valid.
This is also true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that require multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the workplace and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Given these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” But such guarantees require you to wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.