Assessment Validation: What You Need to Know to Validate Assessments

Assessment Validation: What You Need to Know to Validate 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 our articles cover validation extensively, let’s redefine it. According to ASQA, validation is a quality review of the assessment process.

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.

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.

According to the standards, two types of validation must be conducted.

The first type of validation ensures that your RTO's assessment meets the requirements of the training package within your scope.

The next type of validation confirms assessments are carried out following 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.

What are the Two Types of Assessment Validation?

Assessment Validation Unpacked

As previously discussed in our blogs, validation involves two processes: (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.

This article will focus on assessment tool validation.

How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

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

When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done

Assessment tool validation is intended to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.

Hence, whenever new learning resources are bought, assessment tool validation is necessary 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.

However, there are additional reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation also when you:

- you update your resources
- your scope includes new training products
- your course includes training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during the risk assessment

ASQA's risk-based approach to regulation necessitates regular risk assessments by RTOs. If there are student complaints about learning resources, it's an opportune time for assessment tool validation.

Identifying 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.

Getting Started with Assessment Tool Validation: Resources Needed

Course Materials

For validation of your assessment tools, you will require the full set 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 – check its suitability as an assessment tool during validation. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common 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 – may include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate these to ensure they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.

Assessment Validation Panel

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 industry skills relevant to the unit being validated

Recent knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next version

Assessment validation document/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 in both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies identifying how each assessment item corresponds 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.
Additionally, it can act as evidence that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.

ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are available online. These tools generally have validators review the tools as a whole to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.

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

While templates like these make validation easier, they also allow for judgment errors since there is little room for commenting 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 Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What to Check?

As detailed in our blog post Common Problems more info In Assessment Tools, it is crucial that your assessment tools enable trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Core Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access guaranteed for everyone in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Are various options provided in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different 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 yield consistent results each time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Evidence Key Rules

Validity – Does the evidence confirm 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 – Do the assessment tools correspond to current units of competency and industry practices?

Even though these are frequently addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, a lot of tools still fail to meet these requirements.

To avoid employing learning resources that leave unit requirements unmet, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Walk the Talk

Observe 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 requires students to:

Carry out each of the following at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication as per service and regulatory requirements:

diaper change

prepare bottles, bottle-feed babies, and clean equipment

prepare solid foods and feed infants

respond suitably to infant signs and cues

prepare babies for sleep and soothe them

monitor and foster age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills

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.

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 suffice.

All or Not Competent

Pay attention to lists. As mentioned earlier, 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?
Add More Specificity

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 can be included in a work package?

Answers may include:

Necessary resources

Applicable costs

Activity length

Appointed 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 questions that require more than one answer at once. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:

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

Answers can include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolation of the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment

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

People – isolation, engineering, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering, administration

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

Seeing these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, these guarantees mean you must wait for an audit to rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take a safe and compliant approach.