Assessment Validation: What You Need to Know to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: What You Need to Know to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

Once RTOs receive registration, they must oversee many aspects such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance. Of all these duties, validation is frequently the most daunting.

Although we've written about validation many times, let’s redefine it. ASQA refers to validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

Validation involves checking which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are accurate and identifying areas for improvement. With a solid understanding of its components, validation is less intimidating.

The SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8 specifies that RTOs need to ensure compliance of their assessment systems, including RPL, with training package requirements, following the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

We are required by the standards to carry out two types of validation.

The first kind of assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessment adheres to the training package requirements within your scope.

The following validation type ensures that assessments follow the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

It suggests that validation takes place before and after the assessment. This article focuses on the first type—assessment tool validation.

The Basics of the Two Types of Assessment Validation

The Meaning 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.

Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, emphasizing the need to meet all unit requirements and ensuring all workbooks are 100% compliant.

Post-assessment validation, in contrast, is about ensuring the implementation side, where Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.

Methods for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Having discussed the two types of validation, let’s delve into assessment tool validation.

Ideal Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

The goal of assessment tool validation is to make sure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.

Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.

You don’t have to wait for the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources right away to ensure they are ready for students.

However, this isn't the only time 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
- you review your course against training product updates
- when learning resources are 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.

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.

Getting Started with Assessment Tool Validation: Resources Needed

Learning Resources

To validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – begin with this document. It details which assessment items correspond to unit requirements, aiding faster validation.

Learner/student workbook – during validation, check if it's suitable as an assessment tool. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common 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 – may include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate these to ensure they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Team for Validation

Clause 1.11 sets out the requirements for validation panel members, stating that validation can be conducted by one or more individuals. RTOs generally require all trainers and assessors to be involved, sometimes including industry experts.

In total, your validation panel must have:

Vocational competencies and 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 the successor version

Assessment validation form/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 can serve as proof that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.

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.

Assessment Principles 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.

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 Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Check?

As stated in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you must ensure your assessment tools allow trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?

Flexibility – Are various options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?

Validity – Is the assessment evaluating what it is intended to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment give the same results every time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Key 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 enough to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Is the assessment tool proving that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Are the assessment tools updated to reflect current units of competency and 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 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 example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires students to:

Complete 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:

nappy change

prepare bottles, bottle-feed read more babies, and clean equipment

prepare solid food and feed infants

respond properly to baby signs and cues

prepare babies for sleep and settle them

monitor and encourage age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills

Having students explain the process of nappy changing for babies under 12 months old doesn’t fulfill the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out the tasks.

Watch Out for 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.
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 or Not Competent

Pay attention to lists. As mentioned earlier, 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?
Add 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 details can be included in a work package?

Answers might include:

Required resources

Relevant expenses

Time required for activities

Appointed roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item calls for multiple answers, indicate the number of answers a student needs to provide. This way, 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, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering

People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, use of engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to judge student competence accurately.

Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” However, with these guarantees, you must wait for an audit before they help rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it's better to take a safe and compliant approach.