A Complete Guide to Assessment Validation and Validating Assessments

A Complete Guide to Assessment Validation and Validating 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.

Although our articles cover validation extensively, let’s redefine it. According to ASQA, validation is a quality review of the assessment process.

In other words, validation identifies which elements of an RTO's assessment process are done right and which need improvement. A proper understanding of its key components makes the task less daunting.

Clause 1.8 of the 2015 SRTOs indicates that RTOs need to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted in accordance with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards mandate two types of validation.

The initial type of assessment validation ensures compliance with the training package assessment requirements within your RTO's scope.

The second validation type ensures that assessments adhere to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

This shows that validation happens pre- and post-assessment. We will focus on the first type—assessment tool validation.

Understanding the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Understanding Assessment Validation

As previously discussed in our blogs, validation involves two processes: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Pre-assessment validation, or assessment tool validation, is concerned with the first part of the clause, which ensures all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are fully compliant.

Conversely, post-assessment validation pertains to the implementation, 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 to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

Having reviewed the two types of validation, let’s dive into the specifics of assessment tool validation.

Optimal Timing for 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.

This means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, assessment tool validation must be performed before they are used by students.

You don’t need to wait until the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.

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

- update your resources
- add new training products on scope
- when course is reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during your risk assessment

The Australian Skills Quality Authority employs a risk-based approach for regulating RTOs and expects regular risk assessments. Therefore, student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.

Selecting Training Products for Validation

Bear in mind, this validation is meant to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs are required to validate all unit resources.

Assessment Tool Validation: Required Resources

Learning Materials

To validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – start with this document. It illustrates which assessment items address unit requirements, making validation quicker.

Learner/student workbook – during validation, check if it's suitable as an assessment tool. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common gap.

Assessor guide/marking guide – verify that instructions for assessors are comprehensive and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are included. Clear benchmarks are key to 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 sets out the requirements for validation panel members, stating that validation can be conducted by one or more individuals. RTOs generally require all trainers and assessors to be involved, sometimes including industry experts.

As a group, your validation panel must possess:

Vocational competencies and current industry skills relevant to the unit being validated

Recent knowledge and expertise in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its updated 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.
Having a validation tool aids both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies seeing how each assessment item maps to 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 acts as evidence 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 Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

Though these templates make validation easier, they can lead to judgment errors because they provide little room for comments on each assessment item.

A more detailed template is recommended to thoroughly inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that align with them. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Inspect?

As we covered in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Assessment Principles
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access provided to everyone in the assessment process?

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 every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Fundamental Rules of Evidence

Validity – Is the evidence verifying 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 enough evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Is the assessment tool confirming that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Do the assessment tools correspond to current units of competency and industry practices?

Even though these are often covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle with these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that overlook some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:

Practice Your Teachings

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:

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:

change nappies

prepare bottles, feed infants from bottles, and clean equipment

prepare solid foods and feed babies

respond suitably to infant signs and cues

prepare infants for sleep and settle them

monitor and support physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate for the age

Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months doesn’t fulfill the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing 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.
Pay attention to the more info numbers. In our 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 isn’t sufficient.

All or Not Competent

Pay attention to 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 More Specific

Every assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Consequently, ensure 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 include:

Necessary materials

Pertinent costs

Length of activities

Specified roles and responsibilities

If an assessment item demands multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered 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:

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

Answers might include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering

People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administration

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

Considering these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” But such guarantees require you to wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.