The Process of Assessment Validation: Steps to Validate Assessments
The Process of Assessment Validation: Steps 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.
We've covered validation in many articles, but it's worth re-examining. ASQA defines it as a quality review of the assessment procedure.
Simply put, validation confirms which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are right and identifies where improvements are needed. A clear understanding of its main components makes it less intimidating.
The 2015 SRTOs Clause 1.8 requires RTOs to make sure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards require RTOs to perform two types of validation.
The initial validation type checks that your RTO's assessments align with the training package requirements.
The second validation type ensures that assessments adhere to 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.
A Look at 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.
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 ensuring the implementation side, where Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.
How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Having reviewed the two types of validation, let’s dive into the specifics of assessment tool validation.
When is Assessment Tool Validation Conducted?
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.
There's no necessity to wait for the next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are appropriate for student use.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- resources are updated
- new training products are added by you on scope
- review your course against training product updates
- your learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA applies a risk-based regulation approach, expecting RTOs to do regular risk assessments. Hence, student complaints about learning resources are a good reason for assessment tool validation.
What Training Products Need 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.
Essential Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Teaching Materials
For validation of your assessment tools, you will require the full set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – this is the initial document to review. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, speeding up 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 – confirm that instructions for assessors are adequate and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are present. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – might include checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Committee
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.
Collectively, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and industry skills pertinent to the unit being validated
Recent knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of these training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its updated version
Validation checklist/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 assists with the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to view 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.
Although ASQA does not recommend or require a particular template for assessment tool validation, many templates are accessible online. These tools typically have validators examine the tools in their entirety to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.
Assessment Principles Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Though these templates simplify check here validation, they can lead to judgment errors due to limited space for comments on each assessment item.
We highly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?
As highlighted in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it is essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.
Essential Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access provided to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment accommodate different options to demonstrate competence according to various needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment measuring what it is supposed to measure? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment yield the same results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Evidence Key Rules
Validity – Does the evidence demonstrate 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 sufficient to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Does the assessment tool prove that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Do the assessment tools correspond to current units of competency and 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 do not meet some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:
Live Up to 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:
Complete 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:
nappying
prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment
prepare solid foods and feed babies
respond properly to infant signs and cues
settle infants for sleep and prepare them
monitor and promote age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Getting students to describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses 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 the 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 doesn’t meet the requirement.
Complete 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?
Could You Be More Specific?
Every assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, ensure your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What information might be included in a work package?
The answer can include:
Needed resources
Applicable costs
Length of activities
Allocated roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item calls for multiple answers, indicate the number of answers a student needs to provide. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered is valid.
This is also true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that require multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers could include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” However, with these guarantees, you must wait for an audit before they help rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it's better to take a safe and compliant approach.