Decoding Assessment Validation: Guide to Validating Assessments
Decoding Assessment Validation: Guide to Validating 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.
We've covered validation in many articles, but it's worth re-examining. ASQA defines it as a quality review of the assessment procedure.
Validation involves checking which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are accurate and identifying areas for improvement. With a solid understanding of its components, validation is less intimidating.
According to Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the training package requirements and are conducted according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards specify that two types of validation need to be performed.
The first type of assessment validation checks that your RTO's assessment aligns with the training package requirements in your scope.
The second validation ensures assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
It indicates that validation occurs both before and after the assessment. The focus here is on the first type: assessment tool validation.
The Two Types of Assessment Validation Explained
Clarifying 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.
This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.
Methods for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Now that we understand the two types of validation, let’s explore the details of assessment tool validation.
Best Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
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, assessment tool validation must be performed before they are used by students.
No need to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they’re suitable for students.
However, this isn't the only time to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- resources are updated
- new training products get added on scope
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- your risk assessment includes identifying your learning resources as a risk
ASQA applies a risk-based approach to regulate RTOs, expecting regular risk assessments. Hence, student complaints about learning resources are a good opportunity for assessment tool validation.
Selecting 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.
Resources Required for Assessment Tool Validation
Educational Resources
Since you are validating your assessment tools, you will require the entire suite 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 – 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.
Assessment Validation Team
Clause 1.11 outlines the criteria for validation panel members, specifying that validation can be done by one or more people. RTOs typically require all trainers and assessors to participate, occasionally inviting industry experts.
Overall, your validation panel should have:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills relevant to the unit being validated
Recent knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Either one of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next version
Assessment validation document/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.
Using a validation tool benefits both the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to comprehend 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.
While ASQA does not have a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, many templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to review the tools as a whole to see if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Though these templates make validation easier, they often result in judgment errors due to 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 Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Inspect?
As outlined in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Basic Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various ways to demonstrate competence according to different needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is supposed to assess? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment produce the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?
Core Rules of Evidence
Validity – Does the evidence indicate 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 sufficient evidence to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Does the assessment tool ensure that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools based on current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Although these are regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools still struggle to meet these requirements.
To avoid employing learning resources that fail to meet all unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Practice Your Teachings
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:
Complete 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 according to service and regulatory requirements:
change diapers
bottle preparation, feeding infants from bottles, and cleaning equipment
prepare solid food and feed infants
respond to infant signs and cues appropriately
settle infants for sleep and prepare them
monitor and promote 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.
Keep an Eye on Plurals!
Pay attention to the numbers. In check here 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 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 sufficient.
Entire or Not Competent
Pay attention to lists. As noted 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?
Can You Clarify Further?
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 can be included in a work package?
Possible answers include:
Obligatory resources
Appropriate costs
Time allocated for activities
Assigned 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 questions that ask for more than one answer simultaneously. These can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental concern in the work area and select 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 – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering
People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering
Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Given these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But these guarantees require waiting for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.