Assessment Validation Simplified: How to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation Simplified: How to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
Upon receiving registration, RTOs must manage various responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, with validation being a notably arduous task.
We have numerous articles on validation, but let's go back to the term itself. ASQA defines validation as a quality review of the assessment process.
Essentially, validation is about identifying which parts of an RTO's assessment process are effective and which need improvement. With a proper grasp of its key aspects, validation becomes less daunting.
As stated in Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards necessitate conducting two types of validation.
The initial validation type checks that your RTO's assessments align with the training package requirements.
The second type of validation verifies assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
Therefore, validation is conducted both before and after the assessment. This article emphasizes the first type: assessment tool validation.
The Fundamentals of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Decoding Assessment Validation
As discussed earlier and in our prior blogs, validation involves two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Assessment tool validation, also called pre-assessment validation, pertains to ensuring all unit requirements are addressed, as outlined in the first part of the clause, ensuring total workbook compliance.
Conversely, post-assessment validation focuses on the implementation side, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.
How Assessment Tool Validation is Conducted
After reviewing the two types of validation, let’s explore the specifics of assessment tool validation.
When Should You Conduct Assessment Tool Validation?
The aim of assessment tool validation is to make sure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are included in your assessment tools.
Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation should be carried out before students use them.
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:
- update your resources
- when new training products are added on scope
- review your course against training product updates
- identifying your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA's risk-based regulation approach requires RTOs to conduct regular risk assessments. Therefore, complaints from students about learning resources are a perfect time for assessment tool validation.
Identifying 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.
Assessment Tool Validation: Required Resources
Training Materials
Given that you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the full array of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the initial document to investigate. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, helping speed up validation.
Learner/student workbook – check its suitability for use as an assessment tool. Verify clear instructions and sufficient answer fields. This is often a gap.
Assessor guide/marking guide – ensure 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.
Team for Validation
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.
As a whole, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated
Up-to-date expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Either of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its updated 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.
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.
It also serves as evidence that you have validated your resources before students use them.
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 Checklist 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 recommended to use a more detailed template for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to them. Below is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Directions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?
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.
Key Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment process provide equal opportunity and access to everyone?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various ways to demonstrate competence according to different needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment test what it is meant to test? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment achieve the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently make decisions on skill competence?
Evidence Basic Rules
Validity – Is the evidence showing 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 adequate 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 based on current units of competency and modern 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 meet some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:
Practice What You Preach
Pay close attention to the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the assessment item. For instance, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires students to:
Perform each of the following tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication per service and regulatory requirements:
change nappies
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment
prepare solids and feed babies
respond get more info properly to baby signs and cues
settle babies for sleep and prepare them
monitor and encourage suitable physical exploration and gross motor skills for the age
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.
Be Mindful of 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.
Notice 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 is not sufficient.
All or No Competence
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?
Could You Be More Specific?
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 can be included in a work package?
Possible answers could include:
Necessary materials
Pertinent costs
Time allocated for activities
Assigned functions 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:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers may include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to judge competence accurately.
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.