Assessment Validation: Tips and Insights on How to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation: Tips and Insights on How to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
Registration brings RTOs many duties like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, yet validation often proves to be the most feared.
Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes validation as a quality review of the assessment process.
Put simply, validation checks which parts of an RTO's assessment process are accurate and spots areas for enhancement. A proper understanding of its main elements can make validation less daunting.
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 require RTOs to perform 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 subsequent validation type ensures assessments are in line with 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.
The Basics of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Unraveling 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.
On the other hand, post-assessment validation deals with implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
In this article, we will emphasize assessment tool validation.
How Assessment Tool Validation is Conducted
Having distinguished between the two types of validation, let’s dive into the details of assessment tool validation.
Optimal Timing for Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation is intended to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.
Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them.
There's no necessity to wait for the next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are appropriate for student use.
However, this isn't the only time to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- your resources get updated
- new training products get added on scope
- reviewing your course against training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach to regulation means RTOs must conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources signal the need for assessment tool validation.
Determining Training Products for Validation
Keep in mind, this validation ensures that all learning resources comply before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation
Course Materials
As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – start with this document. It illustrates which assessment items address unit requirements, making validation quicker.
Learner/student workbook – assess its appropriateness for use as an assessment tool. Verify clear instructions and adequate answer fields. This is often a gap.
Assessor guide/marking guide – also verify if instructions for assessors are sufficient and if clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – such as checklists, registers, and templates created independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to ensure they are suitable for the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Team
Clause 1.11 details the requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be conducted by one or more people. Generally, RTOs require participation from all trainers and assessors and may include industry experts.
Your validation panel, as a group, must possess:
Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to 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 its equivalent
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.
A validation tool assists in both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies identifying how each assessment item corresponds to 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 provides documentation that you have validated your resources before students use them.
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.
Principles of Assessment Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Although these templates ease the validation process, they can cause errors in judgment as there is minimal space 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 Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Checking?
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.
Basic Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment evaluate what it is meant to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for measuring 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?
Essential Rules of Evidence
Validity – Is the evidence proof 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 there adequate evidence to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Does the assessment tool confirm that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Do the assessment tools align with current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?
Even though these are regularly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet 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
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:
diaper changing
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
solid food preparation and feeding babies
respond suitably to baby signs and cues
prepare infants 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 doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing 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.
Pay attention to 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 isn’t enough.
Full or Not Competent
Pay attention to lists. As illustrated above, 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 should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, make sure your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What kinds of information can be included in a work package?
The answer could include:
Required materials
Appropriate costs
Time allocated for activities
Allocated roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item demands multiple answers, specify the number of answers required from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence obtained is valid.
This is also true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that require multiple answers at once. These can confuse get more info students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers 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 – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to judge student competence accurately.
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.