How to Understand Assessment Validation and Validate Assessments
How to Understand Assessment Validation and 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.
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.
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 assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements.
The next type of validation confirms assessments are carried out following 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.
A Look at the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Unraveling Assessment Validation
As noted earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is divided 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.
Conversely, post-assessment validation pertains to the implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
We will dedicate this article to assessment tool validation.
How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Now that we understand the two types of validation, let’s explore the details of assessment tool validation.
When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done
Assessment tool validation ensures 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, you must perform assessment tool validation before student use.
There's no requirement to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources promptly to ensure they’re appropriate for students.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- your resources get updated
- adding new training products on scope
- your course gets reviewed against training product updates
- identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
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.
Determining Training Products for Validation
It's important to remember this validation ensures that all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs need to validate resources for each unit.
Key Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Educational Resources
To conduct assessment tool validation, you will need 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 as an assessment tool during validation. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common 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 – may consist of checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Committee
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.
Your validation panel, as a group, must possess:
Up-to-date vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated
Up-to-date 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 successor
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 is beneficial for both the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to understand 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.
Additionally, it can act as evidence that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.
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.
Principles of Assessment Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While these templates facilitate the validation process, they can result in judgment errors due to the limited space for comments on each assessment item.
A more detailed template is highly recommended for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that align with them. Below is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Examine?
As we covered in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Basic Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access ensured in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Are various options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment assess what it is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for measuring 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?
Essential 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 sufficient 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 – Do the assessment tools correspond to 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 employing learning resources that miss some unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Show What You Mean
Focus on the verbs used in the unit requirements and make sure 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 actions at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication as per service and regulatory requirements:
nappy change
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
prepare solid food and feed babies
appropriately respond to infant signs and cues
prepare infants for sleep and settle them
monitor and foster 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.
Mind 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.
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 meet the requirement.
Full or Not Competent
Mind the lists. In the previous example, 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?
Could You Be Clearer?
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 kind of information can be included in a work package?
The click here answer can include:
Necessary materials
Pertinent costs
Length of activities
Designated roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify the number of answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.
The same is true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those asking for multiple answers at once. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental concern in the workplace and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers could include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Seeing these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But such guarantees mean you must wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.