The Fundamentals of Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
The Fundamentals of Assessment Validation: 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.
Despite our extensive coverage on validation, let's re-examine the term. ASQA states that validation is a quality check of the assessment process.
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 primary type of assessment validation verifies that your RTO's assessment meets the training package requirements.
The next validation ensures that assessments are conducted per the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
Thus, validation is performed both prior to and following the assessment. The first type, assessment tool validation, is the focus here.
Understanding the Two Types of Assessment Validation
The Basics of Assessment Validation
As noted earlier and in our earlier blog entries, validation is split into two stages: (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 ensuring the implementation side, where Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
We will dedicate this article to assessment tool validation.
How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Having reviewed the two types of validation, let’s dive into the specifics of assessment tool validation.
When to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are included in your assessment tools.
Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, assessment tool validation should be conducted before students 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.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- updating your resources
- your scope includes new training products
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- you identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA's risk-based regulation approach means RTOs should perform regular risk assessments. If students complain about learning resources, it's a perfect time for assessment tool validation.
What Training Products Need Validation?
Keep in mind, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need
Educational Resources
Given that you are validating your assessment tools, you will need the complete array of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document to check. It indicates which assessment items align with unit requirements, making validation faster.
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 – 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 – 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 Committee
Clause 1.11 outlines the requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be done by one or more people. Typically, RTOs require all trainers and assessors to attend and may invite industry experts.
Collectively, your validation panel should have:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills that relate to the unit being validated
Up-to-date expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next version
Assessment validation instrument/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.
It also acts as evidence that you have validated your resources prior to student use.
ASQA does not specify a required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools as a whole to ensure 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 Directions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Checking?
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.
Basic Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access ensured in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Are different click here options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on individual 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 yield the same results each time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions on skill competence?
Essential Rules of Evidence
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 adequate to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Does the assessment tool verify 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 prevent using learning resources that do not address some unit requirements, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:
Follow Through with Actions
Pay close attention to 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 asks students to:
Perform each of the following at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication in accordance with service and regulatory requirements:
diaper changing
prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment
solid foods preparation and feeding babies
respond suitably to baby signs and cues
prepare infants for sleep and settle them
monitor and support age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Getting students to describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Notice 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 won’t suffice.
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?
Be Clearer
Each assessment item must have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s crucial that your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What types of information can be included in a work package?
The answer might include:
Compulsory resources
Relevant costs
Activity duration
Allocated 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.
The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that ask for multiple answers simultaneously. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the workplace and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers can include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolating, engineering, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Seeing these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees mean you must wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.