Getting Started with Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
Getting Started with 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.
Though we've written extensively on validation, let's clarify it again. ASQA describes it as a quality assessment review.
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.
Clause 1.8 in the SRTOs 2015 outlines that RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards mandate two types of validation.
The first assessment validation type verifies that your RTO's assessments adhere to the training package requirements within your scope.
The next type of validation confirms assessments are carried out following the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This means we validate assessments both before and after they are conducted. This article will cover the first type—assessment tool validation.
Understanding the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Clarifying 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, also called pre-assessment validation, pertains to ensuring all unit requirements are addressed, as outlined in the first part of the clause, ensuring total workbook compliance.
In post-assessment validation, the emphasis is on implementation, ensuring that Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments as per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Here, we will concentrate on assessment tool validation.
Steps for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
After reviewing the two types of validation, let’s explore the specifics of assessment tool validation.
When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done
The objective of assessment tool validation is to ensure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
This means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, assessment tool validation must be performed before they are used by students.
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.
Nonetheless, there are other reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- resources are updated
- new training products are added on scope
- you review your course against training product updates
- your learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA's risk-based approach to regulation necessitates regular risk assessments by RTOs. If there are student complaints about learning resources, it's an opportune time for assessment tool validation.
How to Choose Training Products for Validation
Keep in mind, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
What Do You Need for Assessment Tool Validation?
Academic Resources
Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the primary document to check. It reveals which assessment items align with unit requirements, expediting 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 – check that instructions for assessors are adequate and that there are clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are essential for 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.
Panel of Validators
Clause 1.11 specifies the criteria for validation panel members, indicating that validation can involve one or more persons. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Overall, your validation panel should have:
Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated
Recent knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment credentials:
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.
A validation tool aids in both the validation process and documentation. It helps visualize how each assessment item meets 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 can provide proof that you have validated your resources before students use them.
ASQA does not provide a specific template for assessment tool validation, but numerous templates can be found online. These tools often have validators look at the tools as a whole to verify if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While such templates facilitate validation, they often result in judgment errors because there’s insufficient 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 Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Checked?
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 Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment process provide equal opportunity and access to everyone?
Flexibility – Are various options provided in the assessment 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 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 – Is the evidence verifying 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 there adequate evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool confirming that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools based on current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Even though these are frequently addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, a lot of tools still fail to meet these requirements.
To avoid using learning resources that leave certain unit requirements unaddressed, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:
Show What You Mean
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:
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:
nappying
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies, and clean equipment
prepare solids and feed babies
respond to baby signs and cues suitably
prepare and settle infants for rest
monitor and encourage physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable 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.
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.
Notice the numbers. In the 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 meet the requirement.
Full Compliance 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?
Provide More Detail
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 information can be included in a work package?
Answers may include:
Obligatory resources
Appropriate costs
Time assigned for activities
Designated roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item calls for read more several answers, specify the number of answers needed from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered is valid.
The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those asking for multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse both students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Given these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees require waiting for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.