Navigating Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
Navigating Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
With registration, RTOs must juggle many responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, where validation often causes the most anxiety.
Even though we’ve written about validation several times, let's revisit its definition. ASQA calls validation a quality review 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.
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.
According to the standards, two types of validation must be conducted.
The first type of validation ensures that your RTO's assessment meets the requirements of the training package within your scope.
The following validation type ensures that assessments follow the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This implies that we validate both prior to and following the assessment. The focus of this article is on the first type: assessment tool validation.
An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Decoding Assessment Validation
As noted earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is divided into two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, emphasizing the need to meet all unit requirements and ensuring all workbooks are 100% compliant.
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.
Here, we will concentrate on 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.
When 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.
Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, assessment tool validation should be conducted before students use them.
You don't have to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Validate new resources right away to ensure they’re appropriate for student use.
Still, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- your resources get updated
- you add new training products on scope
- you review your course against training product updates
- learning resources are identified by you 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.
Selecting Training Products for Validation
Bear in mind, this validation aims to ensure compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs are required to validate all unit resources.
Necessary Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Educational Materials
As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – this should be the first document to examine. It shows which assessment items correspond to unit requirements, facilitating quicker validation.
Learner/student workbook – ensure it's appropriate for use as an assessment tool. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a frequent gap.
Assessor guide/marking guide – confirm that instructions for assessors are adequate and clear benchmarks for each assessment item exist. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – may include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate these to ensure they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Group
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.
Together, your validation panel should possess:
Up-to-date vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated
Up-to-date knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one 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.
Having a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It makes it simpler to see 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.
Simultaneously, it can serve as proof that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.
While ASQA does not recommend or require a specific template for assessment tool validation, numerous templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to examine the tools as a whole to see if they meet the principles of assessment.
Assessment Principles Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Although such templates ease validation, they can cause judgment errors since there’s minimal space for comments on each assessment item.
It is highly advisable to use a more detailed template for evaluating each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Below is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Review?
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.
Fundamental Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access provided to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment provide multiple options to show competence according to various 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 produce the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?
Evidence Core 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 ensuring that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools reflective of current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?
Despite being regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still have issues with these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Follow Through with Actions
Pay 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:
Carry out 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 as per service and regulatory requirements:
change nappies
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment
prepare solids and feed babies
appropriately respond to infant signs and cues
settle infants for sleep and prepare them
monitor and promote physical exploration and gross motor skills suitable for the age
Having students explain the process of nappy changing for babies under 12 months old doesn’t fulfill the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be carrying out 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.
Notice the numbers. In the 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 doesn’t meet the requirement.
Full or Not Competent
Pay attention to lists. Again, as illustrated above, 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?
Give 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 kind of information can be included in a work package?
The answer could include:
Needed resources
Relevant expenses
Activity length
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 those requiring multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers could include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, engineering
People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, use of engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, read more engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Given these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees require waiting for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.