A Thorough Understanding of Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments

With registration, RTOs must juggle many responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, where validation often causes the most anxiety.

Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

Simply put, validation confirms which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are right and identifies where improvements are needed. A clear understanding of its main components makes it less intimidating.

Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015 mandates that RTOs ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with 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 primary validation type ensures compliance with the training package requirements for your RTO's assessments.

The second kind of validation ensures assessments are carried out in accordance with the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

This suggests we perform validation both before and after the assessment. This article will concentrate on the first type—assessment tool validation.

Understanding the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Exploring the Concept of Assessment Validation

As mentioned earlier and in one of our previous blog posts, validation is split into two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Pre-assessment validation or assessment tool validation focuses on the first part of the clause, ensuring that all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are entirely compliant.

On the implementation side, post-assessment validation ensures Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.

Procedure for Assessment Tool Validation

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

Best Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

The objective of assessment tool validation is to ensure that 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 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:

- resources get updated
- new training products are added on scope
- reviewing your course against training product updates
- identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment

The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach to regulation means RTOs must conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources signal the need for assessment tool validation.

Which Training Products to 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.

What You Need for Assessment Tool Validation

Training Materials

To validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set 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 – ensure it is suitable as an assessment tool during validation. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.

Assessor guide/marking guide – ensure sufficient instructions for assessors and clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are vital for reliable assessment outcomes.

Other related resources – these could be checklists, registers, and templates created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.

Team 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.

Your validation panel, as a group, must possess:

Current vocational competencies and relevant industry skills for the unit being validated

Recent expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

One of these training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next version

Assessment validation tool/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 helps in both the validation process and documentation. It makes it simpler to see 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.
It also serves as evidence 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.

Principles of Assessment Guide 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.

We recommend using a more detailed template to examine each unit requirement and the assessment items that correspond to them. Here is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Standards Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Review?

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.

Assessment Key Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunity and access ensured for 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 evaluating what it is intended to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment give the same results every time, regardless of the trainer? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?

Essential 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 the evidence sufficient 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 based on current units of competency Assessment validation requirements Australia and modern industry practices?

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

To avoid using learning resources that do not address all unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:

Lead by Example

Observe the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the assessment item. For instance, 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, feeding infants from bottles, and cleaning equipment

prepare solid foods and feed infants

appropriately respond to baby signs and cues

prepare and settle babies for rest

monitor and encourage suitable physical exploration and gross motor skills for the age

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.

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.
Notice the numbers. In the 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 doesn’t meet the requirement.

All Requirements or Not Competent

Observe the lists. As noted above, if students are asked to 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?
Give More Specificity

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 sort of information can be included in a work package?

Possible answers could include:

Needed resources

Appropriate costs

Time required for activities

Assigned 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.

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:

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

Possible answers can include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolation of work area, engineering, PPE

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

People – isolation, engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration

Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge competence.

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