All About Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments

All About Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments

Blog Article

Among the numerous obligations RTOs face post-registration—annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, marketing compliance—validation is often the most dreaded.

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 verifying which areas of an RTO's assessment process are correct and highlighting where improvements are needed. Understanding its key components makes the task less intimidating.

The SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8 specifies that RTOs need to ensure compliance of their assessment systems, including RPL, with training package requirements, following the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

We are required by the standards to carry out two types of validation.

The primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.

The subsequent validation type ensures assessments are in line with the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

This indicates validation occurs before and after the assessment process. We will focus on the first type: assessment tool validation.

The Two Types of Assessment Validation Explained

Assessment Validation Unpacked

As mentioned earlier and in one of our previous blog posts, validation is split into two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Assessment tool validation, sometimes called pre-assessment validation, focuses on ensuring all unit requirements are met, in line with 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.

Here, we will concentrate on assessment tool validation.

Steps to Perform Assessment Tool Validation

With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.

Best Times to 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.

This means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, you must perform assessment tool validation before student use.

There's no requirement to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources promptly to ensure they’re appropriate for students.

Still, this isn't the only reason for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:

- updating your resources
- your scope includes new training products
- reviewing your course against training product updates
- learning resources are identified by you as a risk during your risk assessment

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.

Training Products to Validate

Do not forget, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.

What You Need for Assessment Tool Validation

Learning Resources

Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite 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 – validate its suitability as an assessment tool. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are adequate. This is a frequent gap.

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 – 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.

Team for Validation

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.

Overall, your validation panel should have:

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 these training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the equivalent successor

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.
A validation tool is beneficial for both the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to understand 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 serves as documentation that you have validated your resources prior to student use.

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.

Assessment Principles Template Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

While such templates facilitate validation, they often result in judgment errors because there’s insufficient 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 Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Review?

As mentioned in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s crucial that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Basic Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment process ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?

Flexibility – Are various options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?

Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for evaluating the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment yield the same results each time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions on skill competence?

Core Rules of Evidence

Validity – Is the evidence demonstrating 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 there sufficient evidence to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool ensure that the work belongs to the candidate?

Currency – Are the assessment tools based on current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?

Despite these being frequently addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, heaps of tools still have problems with these requirements.

To avoid using learning resources that leave certain unit requirements unaddressed, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:

Act on Your Words

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:

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:

diapering

bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment

solid food preparation and feeding babies

appropriately respond to baby signs and cues

prepare infants for sleep and soothe them

monitor and encourage suitable physical exploration and gross motor skills for the age

Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly fulfill the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.

Be Cautious with 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 Not Competent

Observe the 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?
Clarify Further

Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers How to validate assessment tools Australia 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?

Possible answers may include:

Mandatory resources

Associated expenses

Time assigned for activities

Allocated roles and responsibilities

If an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers are needed from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence obtained 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:

Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Possible answers may include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolating, engineering controls

People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administrative controls

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administration

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.

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.