Assessment Validation Explained: Methods to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation Explained: Methods to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
Upon receiving registration, RTOs must manage various responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, with validation being a notably arduous task.
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.
According to Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the training package requirements and are conducted according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards mandate two types of validation.
The first assessment validation type verifies that your RTO's assessments adhere to the training package requirements within your scope.
The following validation type ensures that assessments follow 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.
The Two Types of Assessment Validation Explained
An Overview of Assessment Validation
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, 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, by contrast, focuses on implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.
Guidelines for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Understanding the two types of validation allows us to delve into the specifics of assessment tool validation.
When Assessment Tool Validation Should Be Done
Assessment tool validation seeks to ensure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools.
Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.
You don’t have to wait for the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources right away to ensure they are ready for students.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- you update your resources
- new training products are added by you on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources are identified by you as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA applies a risk-based approach to regulate RTOs, expecting regular risk assessments. Hence, student complaints about learning resources are a good opportunity for assessment tool validation.
What Training Products Should Be Validated?
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.
What You Need for Assessment Tool Validation
Educational Materials
For validating your assessment tools, you will need the full array of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the initial document to investigate. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, helping speed up validation.
Learner/student workbook – assess its appropriateness for use as an assessment tool. Verify clear instructions and adequate answer fields. This is often a gap.
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 – 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.
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.
Collectively, your validation panel should have:
Relevant vocational competencies and industry skills for the unit being validated
Current 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 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.
Simultaneously, it provides documentation that you have validated your resources before students use them.
Although ASQA does not recommend or require a specific template for assessment tool validation, numerous templates can be found online. These tools typically have validators examine the tools holistically to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.
Assessment Principles Form Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Though these templates make validation easier, they often result in judgment errors due to limited space for comments on each assessment item.
It is advisable to use a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Below is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Inspected?
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 Key Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment ensure equal opportunity and access for everyone?
Flexibility – Does the assessment accommodate different options to demonstrate 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 yield the same results each time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions 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 adequate 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 – Are the assessment tools updated to reflect current units of competency and 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 avoid using learning resources that do not address all unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
Be Consistent with 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 at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication in accordance with service and regulatory requirements:
diaper change
bottle preparation, bottle-feeding infants, and cleaning equipment
prepare solid food and feed babies
respond to baby signs and cues suitably
prepare infants for sleep and soothe them
monitor and encourage age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly meet the unit requirement. Unless the unit requirement is meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Keep an Eye on 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 check here 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.
Total 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?
Be Clearer
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 type of information can be included in a work package?
The answer may include:
Obligatory resources
Applicable costs
Time required for activities
Appointed duties 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.
This applies equally to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that require more than one answer at the same time. These can confuse 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 may include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering
People – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substituting, isolation, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to judge competence accurately.
Seeing these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But such guarantees mean you must wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.