Unlocking the Secrets of Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments
Unlocking the Secrets of Assessment Validation: Validating Assessments
Blog Article
RTOs face many tasks after registration, such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, but validation is typically the most daunting.
Although we've written about validation many times, let’s redefine it. ASQA refers to validation as 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.
Clause 1.8 in the SRTOs 2015 outlines that RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards mandate two types of validation.
The first kind of assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessment adheres to the training package requirements within your scope.
The next type of validation confirms assessments are carried out following the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
Thus, we understand that validation is done before and after the assessment. This article highlights the first type: assessment tool validation.
Defining the Two Types of Assessment Validation
What Does Assessment Validation Mean?
As discussed earlier and in our prior blogs, validation involves two parts: (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.
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.
Here, we will concentrate on assessment tool validation.
Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
After reviewing the two types of validation, let’s explore the specifics of assessment tool validation.
Best Times to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation ensures that 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 need to wait until the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- resources get updated
- your scope includes new training products
- review your course against training product updates
- identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA's risk-based regulation approach requires RTOs to conduct regular risk assessments. Therefore, complaints from students about learning resources are a perfect time for assessment tool validation.
What Training Products Should Be Validated?
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.
Essential Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Learning Materials
Given that you are validating your assessment tools, you will need the complete array of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – this is the initial document to review. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, speeding up validation.
Learner/student workbook – validate its suitability as an assessment tool. Confirm that instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common problem.
Assessor guide/marking guide – ensure that instructions for assessors are sufficient and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear benchmarks are essential for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – may consist of checklists, registers, and templates developed independently from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Board
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.
In total, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to the unit being validated
Current expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the next version
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.
A validation tool assists with the validation process and documentation. It makes it easier to view 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 acts as evidence that you have validated your resources prior to student use.
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 Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While templates of this kind simplify validation, they can introduce judgment errors due to a lack of 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 Inspection?
As mentioned in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s crucial that your assessment tools enable 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 – Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment measure what it is supposed to measure? Is it a valid tool for evaluating 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 indicate 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 enough evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool verifying that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Are the assessment tools aligned 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 prevent employing learning resources that miss some unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Show What You Mean
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 activities at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication according to service and regulatory requirements:
changing nappies
bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment
solid food prep and feeding babies
appropriately respond to baby signs and cues
prepare infants for sleep and soothe them
monitor and support 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.
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 get more info 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.
Full Compliance or Not Competent
Pay attention to lists. Again, as illustrated above, 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?
Give More Specificity
Each assessment item must include clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Hence, ensure your instructions are clear and not confusing for students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What type of information can be included in a work package?
Answers might include:
Necessary materials
Associated costs
Time assigned for activities
Assigned 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.
This is true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions requiring more than one answer at the same time. These can confuse students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers may include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, use of engineering controls, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Considering these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers have audit guarantees?” But such guarantees require you to wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant route.