Getting Started with Assessment Validation: How to Validate Assessments
Getting Started with Assessment Validation: How 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.
Despite our extensive coverage on validation, let's re-examine the term. ASQA states that validation is a quality check 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 require RTOs to perform two types of validation.
The initial assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements.
The second validation ensures assessments are conducted according 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.
An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Breaking Down Assessment Validation
As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blog entries, validation is divided into two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Assessment tool validation, known as pre-assessment validation, pertains to the first part of the clause, focusing on meeting all unit requirements and 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 in this article will be on assessment tool validation.
Methods for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Now that we’ve differentiated the two types of validation, let’s examine assessment tool validation in detail.
When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done
The goal of assessment tool validation is to make sure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them.
You don’t need to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.
However, this isn't the only instance to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- update your resources
- you add new training products on scope
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- your risk assessment includes identifying your learning resources as a risk
The risk-based regulatory approach of ASQA requires RTOs to perform regular risk assessments. Student complaints about learning resources indicate it's time for assessment tool validation.
How to Choose Training Products for Validation
Keep in mind, this validation ensures that all learning resources comply before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
What Do You Need for Assessment Tool Validation?
Teaching Materials
Given that you are validating your assessment tools, you will need the complete array 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 – 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 – ensure that instructions for assessors are sufficient and clear benchmarks for each assessment item exist. Clear benchmarks are essential for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – could include checklists, registers, and templates developed apart from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.
Panel of Validators
Clause 1.11 defines the requirements for validation panel members, stating validation can involve one or more individuals. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to be present, sometimes including industry experts.
As a group, your validation panel must possess:
Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant 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 its equivalent
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.
Using a validation tool helps in both the validation process and documentation. It facilitates seeing how each assessment item matches 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.
Additionally, it can act as evidence that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.
ASQA does not specify a required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools as a whole to ensure 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.
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 Assessment Directions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Inspect?
As mentioned in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you need to ensure that your assessment tools allow trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Fundamental Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access guaranteed for everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Are different options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on individual needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment evaluate what it is intended to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment yield consistent results each time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Key Rules of Evidence
Validity – Is the evidence proof that the candidate possesses 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 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 mirror current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Despite being frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still have issues with these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Lead by Example
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:
Carry out 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:
changing nappies
prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies and sanitize equipment
solid foods preparation and feeding babies
respond appropriately to baby signs and cues
prepare babies for sleep and soothe them
monitor and support age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly address the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Pay Attention to Plurals!
Pay attention to the numbers. In our example on one of the unit requirements of CHCECE032, this more info 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 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.
Entire or Not Competent
Mind the lists. In the previous example, 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?
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 details can be included in a work package?
Possible answers could include:
Needed materials
Relevant costs
Duration of activities
Assigned functions and responsibilities
When an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected 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 select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, engineering
People – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to judge student competence accurately.
Given these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees require waiting for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.