Comprehensive Insights on Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments
Comprehensive Insights on Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments
Blog Article
RTOs have numerous responsibilities post-registration, including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and ensuring marketing compliance. Among these tasks, validation often stands out as particularly challenging.
Although we've written about validation many times, let’s redefine it. ASQA refers to validation as a quality review of the assessment process.
Validation is the process of confirming accurate areas in an RTO's assessment process and pinpointing elements for improvement. With a correct understanding of its components, it’s less daunting.
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.
The standards mandate two types of validation.
The primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.
The second validation ensures assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This suggests we perform validation both before and after the assessment. This article will concentrate on the first type—assessment tool validation.
Exploring the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Assessment Validation: What It Is
As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blogs, validation is split into two parts: (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.
Post-assessment validation, by contrast, focuses on implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.
Procedure for Assessment Tool Validation
With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
Timing for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation aims to verify that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are covered by your assessment tools.
Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to 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.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- resources are updated by you
- you add new training products on scope
- when course is reviewed against training product updates
- when learning resources are 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.
How to Choose Training Products for Validation
Remember, this type of validation is to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs should validate all unit resources.
Getting Started with Assessment Tool Validation: Resources Needed
Educational Materials
As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – begin with this document. It details which assessment items correspond to unit requirements, aiding faster validation.
Learner/student workbook – ensure it's appropriate as an assessment tool. Check if the instructions are clear and answer fields are adequate. This is a frequent issue.
Assessor guide/marking guide – also verify if instructions for assessors are sufficient and if clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are crucial 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.
Panel for Validation
Clause 1.11 details the requirements for validation panel members, noting that validation can be conducted by one or more people. Generally, RTOs require participation from all trainers and assessors and may include industry experts.
As a whole, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills applicable to the unit being validated
Current knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning
Any of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next version
Assessment 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 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.
ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates can be found online. These tools often have validators review the tools as a whole to verify 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 simplify 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 Assessment Guidelines Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Checking?
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.
Essential Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment process provide equal opportunity and access to everyone?
Flexibility – Does the assessment provide multiple options to show competence according to various needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment assess what it is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment give the same results every time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Rules of Evidence
Validity – Is the evidence confirming 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 confirming that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools in line with current units of competency and contemporary 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 prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Live Up to Your Words
Focus on 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 asks students to:
Perform each of the following activities at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication according to service and regulatory requirements:
nappying
bottle preparation, feeding babies from bottles, and cleaning equipment
prepare solid food and feed infants
appropriately respond to infant signs and cues
prepare infants for sleep and soothe 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.
Watch Out for 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.
Mind 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 check here twice with one baby doesn’t suffice.
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?
Be Clearer
Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, 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:
Obligatory resources
Associated costs
Time frame for activities
Designated duties and responsibilities
When an assessment item demands multiple answers, indicate the number of answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.
This also applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that ask for multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental concern in the workplace and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolation of the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering
People – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administration
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.