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.
Even though we’ve written about validation several times, let's revisit its definition. ASQA calls validation a quality review of the assessment process.
Validation is essentially about verifying the accuracy of parts of an RTO's assessment process and spotting areas needing improvement. Understanding its key components can make it less daunting.
As per the 2015 SRTOs Clause 1.8, RTOs are required to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, meet training package requirements and follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
According to the standards, RTOs must conduct 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 next type of validation confirms assessments are carried out following the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
This means we validate assessments both before and after they are conducted. This article will cover the first type—assessment tool validation.
The Two Types of Assessment Validation Explained
The Basics 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, 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, by contrast, focuses on implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.
Guidelines for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Having distinguished between the two types of validation, let’s dive into the details of assessment tool validation.
Timing for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are included in your assessment tools.
This means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, you must perform assessment tool validation before student use.
There's no requirement to wait for your next 5-year cycle validation schedule. Validate new resources promptly to ensure they’re ready for students.
Still, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- you update your resources
- add new training products on scope
- training product updates are reviewed against your course
- you identify your learning resources as a risk during your 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.
Determining Training Products for Validation
Do not forget, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Key Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Course 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 – 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 – 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 – 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 Team
Clause 1.11 outlines the criteria for validation panel members, specifying that validation can be done by one or more people. RTOs typically require all trainers and assessors to participate, occasionally inviting industry experts.
As a whole, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills relevant to the unit being validated
Up-to-date knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the successor version
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.
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.
ASQA does not specify a required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools as a whole to ensure they meet the principles of assessment.
Assessment Principles Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Although such templates ease validation, they can cause judgment errors since there’s minimal 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 Directions Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?
As highlighted in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it is essential that your assessment tools enable trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.
Core Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment provide multiple options to show competence according to various 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 achieve consistent results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?
Evidence Core Rules
Validity – Is the evidence showing 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 enough evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Does the assessment tool confirm that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Do the assessment tools reflect current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Although these are often addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that do not meet some unit requirements, make sure to follow these guidelines:
Demonstrate What You Teach
Pay close attention to 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 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:
nappying
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
prepare solid foods and feed infants
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 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.
Be Cautious with 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 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 enough.
All or No Competence
Pay attention to lists. As illustrated above, 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?
Be More Specific
Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Hence, it’s important that your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What details can be included in a work package?
The answer could include:
Obligatory resources
Appropriate costs
Length of activities
Designated 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 asking for multiple answers simultaneously. These can confuse both students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:
Identify a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers get more info 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 – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, engineering controls, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
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.