Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate Assessments
Assessment Validation: A Detailed Guide to Validate Assessments
Blog Article
After gaining registration, RTOs need to monitor several aspects including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, with validation being a major concern.
Although our articles cover validation extensively, let’s redefine it. According to ASQA, validation is a quality review of the assessment process.
Validation involves checking which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are accurate and identifying areas for improvement. With a solid understanding of its components, validation is less intimidating.
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.
We are required by the standards to carry out two types of validation.
The first type of assessment validation checks that your RTO's assessment aligns with the training package requirements in your scope.
The following validation type ensures that assessments follow the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
Thus, validation is performed both prior to and following the assessment. The first type, assessment tool validation, is the focus here.
A Look at the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Assessment Validation Explained
As discussed before and in previous blogs, validation includes 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.
Post-assessment validation, in contrast, is about ensuring the implementation side, where Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This article will focus on assessment tool validation.
Procedure for Assessment Tool Validation
After reviewing the two types of validation, let’s explore the specifics of assessment tool validation.
Optimal Timing for Assessment Tool Validation
The aim of assessment tool validation is to ensure 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.
You don't have to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Validate new resources right away to ensure they’re appropriate for student use.
Still, this isn't the only reason for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- update your resources
- adding new training products on scope
- course is reviewed against training product updates
- your risk assessment includes identifying your learning resources as a risk
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.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
It's crucial to remember this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs should validate resources for each unit.
Getting Started with Assessment Tool Validation: Resources Needed
Teaching Materials
Since you are conducting assessment tool validation, you will need the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the primary document to check. It reveals which assessment items align with unit requirements, expediting validation.
Learner/student workbook – check its suitability for use as an assessment tool. Verify clear instructions and sufficient answer fields. This is often a gap.
Assessor guide/marking guide – check that instructions for assessors are adequate and that there are clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are essential for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – might include checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Team
Clause 1.11 specifies the criteria for validation panel members, indicating that validation can involve one or more persons. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Your validation panel must, as a group, possess:
Relevant vocational competencies and up-to-date 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 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.
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.
It also acts as evidence that you have validated your resources prior to student use.
ASQA does not specify a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools in their entirety to ensure they meet the principles of assessment.
Assessment Principles Checklist Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While these templates simplify the validation process, they can introduce judgment errors because there is insufficient 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 Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Review?
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.
Key Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Is equal opportunity and access provided to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment test what read more it is meant to test? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment give consistent results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?
Evidence 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 – Is the assessment tool ensuring 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 avoid employing learning resources that fail to meet all unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Show What You Mean
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:
Complete each of the following actions 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:
change nappies
bottle preparation, feeding babies from bottles, and cleaning equipment
prepare solid foods and feed babies
appropriately respond to infant signs and cues
prepare infants for sleep and soothe them
monitor and support physical exploration and gross motor skills appropriate for the age
Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly fulfill the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.
Heed 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.
Pay attention to 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 twice with one baby isn’t enough.
All or Nothing
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?
Give More Specificity
Each assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important that your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What information might be included in a work package?
The answer could include:
Mandatory resources
Relevant costs
Activity length
Appointed duties and responsibilities
If an assessment item calls for several answers, specify the number of answers needed from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered 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 workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers can include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolating, engineering controls
People – isolating, engineering, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to judge 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.