Exploring Assessment Validation: Steps to Validate Assessments
Exploring Assessment Validation: Steps to 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.
While we've discussed validation in multiple articles, let's return to the basics. ASQA defines validation as a quality check of the assessment process.
Validation is essentially about verifying the accuracy of parts of an RTO's assessment process and spotting areas needing improvement. Understanding its key components can make it less daunting.
Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015 mandates that RTOs ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
As per the standards, two kinds of validation are required.
The first type of validation ensures that your RTO's assessment meets the requirements of the training package within 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.
Exploring the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Assessment Validation: An Explanation
As previously discussed in our blogs, validation involves two processes: (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.
In post-assessment validation, the emphasis is on implementation, ensuring that Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments as per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Here, we will concentrate on assessment tool validation.
Procedure for Assessment Tool Validation
Having outlined the two types of validation, it’s time to dive into assessment tool validation.
Best Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
The objective of assessment tool validation is to ensure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
This implies that any time new learning resources are obtained, assessment tool validation must be done before student use.
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.
Still, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- you update your resources
- new training products are added by you on scope
- you review your course against training product updates
- identify your learning resources 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.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
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.
What Do You Need for Assessment Tool Validation?
Learning Resources
As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document you should look at. It highlights which assessment items meet unit requirements, accelerating 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 – check that there are sufficient instructions for assessors and clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are vital 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.
Validation Board
Clause 1.11 specifies the criteria for validation panel members, indicating that validation can involve one or more persons. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Your validation panel must, as a group, possess:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills applicable to the unit being validated
Current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its updated version
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.
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 serves as documented proof that you have validated your resources before student use.
Although ASQA does not recommend or require a particular template for assessment tool validation, many templates are available online. These tools typically have validators review the tools in their entirety to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment 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.
We strongly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to them. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Directions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Inspection?
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.
Essential Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Are different options available in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on individual needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment evaluate what it is meant to evaluate? Is it Assessment validation checklist Australia 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?
Evidence Key Rules
Validity – Does the evidence show 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 ensure 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?
Even though these are regularly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.
To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Follow Through with Actions
Take note of 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 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 change
prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment
solid food preparation and feeding babies
respond suitably to infant signs and cues
prepare babies for sleep and soothe them
monitor and encourage suitable physical exploration and gross motor skills 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.
Heed 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 sufficient.
Complete Compliance or Not Competent
Mind the lists. Again, if students perform just 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?
Add More Specificity
Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Hence, it’s important 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?
The answer could include:
Essential resources
Applicable costs
Activity duration
Appointed roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This way, your assessment remains 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 workplace and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, engineering
People – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and enables assessors to accurately judge competence.
Considering these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” However, such guarantees require you to wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant approach.