An Overview of the Process of Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments
An Overview of the Process of Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
Post-registration, RTOs are tasked with many responsibilities including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, and validation is often the most challenging.
We've covered validation in many articles, but it's worth re-examining. ASQA defines it as a quality review of the assessment procedure.
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.
According to SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8, RTOs must ensure that their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards necessitate conducting two types of validation.
The initial type of assessment validation ensures compliance with the training package assessment requirements within your RTO's scope.
The next validation type confirms assessments are conducted following 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 Basics of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
The Essence of 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, 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.
Post-assessment validation, in contrast, is about the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to conduct assessments adhering to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
For this piece, our emphasis will be on assessment tool validation.
Procedure for Assessment Tool Validation
Now that we understand the two types of validation, let’s explore the details of assessment tool validation.
When Should You Conduct Assessment Tool Validation?
The purpose of assessment tool validation is to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.
Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation is necessary before student use.
You don't have to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Validate new resources right away to ensure they’re appropriate for student use.
Yet, this is not the only occasion to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- resources are updated by you
- you add new training products on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based regulatory approach means RTOs should conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources are a prime opportunity for assessment tool validation.
Training Products to Validate
Do not forget, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Essential Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Training Materials
For validating your assessment tools, you will need the full array of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – start with this document. It illustrates which assessment items address unit requirements, making validation quicker.
Learner/student workbook – ensure it's appropriate as an assessment tool. Check if the instructions are clear and answer fields are adequate. This is a frequent issue.
Assessor guide/marking guide – ensure that instructions for assessors are sufficient and clear benchmarks for each assessment item exist. Clear benchmarks are essential 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.
Validation Team
Clause 1.11 defines the requirements for validation panel members, stating validation can involve one or more individuals. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to be present, sometimes including industry experts.
The members of your validation panel must collectively have:
Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to the unit being validated
Recent knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of these training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next 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.
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.
Additionally, it serves as documented proof that you have validated your resources before student use.
ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates can be found online. These tools often have validators review the tools as a whole to verify if they meet the principles of assessment.
Assessment Principles Template 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.
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 Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Checking?
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.
Essential Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment testing what it is meant to test? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment achieve the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently make decisions on skill competence?
Key Rules of Evidence
Validity – Does the evidence show 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 adequate to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool verifying that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools based on current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?
Despite being frequently 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:
Follow Through with Actions
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:
diaper change
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
prepare solid foods and feed babies
respond to baby signs and cues appropriately
settle infants for sleep and prepare them
monitor and promote age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students explain the process of nappy changing for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing 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.
Mind 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 doesn’t suffice.
Complete Compliance or Not Competent
Pay attention to lists. Again, as illustrated above, 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?
Add More Specificity
Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important that your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What details can be included in a work package?
Possible answers could include:
Necessary resources
Relevant expenses
Time required for activities
Appointed roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item calls for several answers, indicate the number of answers required from a student. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.
The same read more applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that ask for more than one answer simultaneously. These can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers can include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolating, engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering, administration
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.