Assessment Validation and You: Steps to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation and You: Steps to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
RTOs have numerous responsibilities post-registration, including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and ensuring marketing compliance. Among these tasks, validation often stands out as particularly challenging.
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 of the 2015 SRTOs indicates that RTOs need to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted in accordance with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
We must adhere to the standards by conducting two types of validation.
The primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.
The subsequent validation confirms that assessments are conducted according to 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.
Defining the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Defining Assessment Validation
As previously discussed in our blogs, validation involves two processes: (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.
In this article, we will emphasize assessment tool validation.
Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
With a clear understanding of the two types of validation, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
When is Assessment Tool Validation Conducted?
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.
This means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, you must perform assessment tool validation before student use.
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.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- your resources get updated
- add new training products on scope
- you review your course against training product updates
- identify your learning resources 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.
Training Products to Validate
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.
Starting Assessment Tool Validation: What You Need
Study Resources
To conduct assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – start by investigating this document. It shows which assessment items meet unit requirements, facilitating quicker validation.
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 – these could be checklists, registers, and templates created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.
Panel of Validators
Clause 1.11 describes the requirements for validation panel members, indicating that validation can be performed by one or more persons. RTOs often require all trainers and assessors to attend, and sometimes industry experts are invited.
Collectively, your validation panel must have:
Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated
Up-to-date knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next version
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 assists with the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to view 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 serves as documented proof that you have validated your resources before student use.
Although ASQA does not recommend or require a specific template for assessment tool validation, numerous templates can be found online. These tools typically have validators examine the tools holistically to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.
Assessment Principles Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Though these templates make validation easier, they can lead to judgment errors because they provide Assessment validation requirements Australia little room for comments 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 Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Check?
As we explained in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s vital that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Basic Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Is the assessment process equitable and accessible to everyone?
Flexibility – Are different 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 consistent results each time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Evidence Basic Rules
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 the evidence sufficient 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 in line with current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?
Although these are often addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools 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
Focus on 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 asks 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:
diaper change
bottle preparation, bottle-feeding infants, and cleaning equipment
solid food preparation and feeding babies
respond to baby signs and cues appropriately
settle babies for sleep and prepare them
monitor and encourage physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable for the age
Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months doesn’t fulfill the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing 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.
Pay attention to the numbers. In our 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 isn’t enough.
Complete 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?
Can You Clarify Further?
Every assessment item must have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, make sure your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What details can be included in a work package?
Answers can include:
Compulsory resources
Relevant expenses
Activity timeframe
Appointed roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item requires multiple answers, indicate the number of answers needed from a student. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected 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 work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers may include, but are not necessarily limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to judge competence accurately.
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.