After gaining registration, RTOs need to monitor several aspects including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, with validation being a major concern.
Despite our extensive coverage on validation, let's re-examine the term. ASQA states that validation is a quality check of the assessment process.
Validation is the process of confirming accurate areas in an RTO's assessment process and pinpointing elements for improvement. With a correct understanding of its components, it’s less daunting.
Clause 1.8 of the 2015 SRTOs indicates that RTOs need to ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted in accordance with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards specify that two types of validation need to be performed.
The first validation type ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements in your scope.
The next validation type confirms assessments are conducted following the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
It suggests that validation takes place before and after the assessment. This article focuses on the first type—assessment tool validation.
Understanding the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Assessment Validation: What It Is
As noted earlier and in previous blog posts, validation comprises two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Assessment tool validation, sometimes called pre-assessment validation, focuses on ensuring all unit requirements are met, in line with the first part of the clause, ensuring complete workbook compliance.
Conversely, post-assessment validation focuses on the implementation side, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
In this write-up, we will focus on assessment tool validation.
Steps for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Having discussed the two types of validation, let’s delve into assessment tool validation.
When is Assessment Tool Validation Conducted?
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, any time you obtain new learning resources, assessment tool validation should be completed before students 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.
However, this isn't the only instance to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- resources are updated
- when new training products are added on scope
- when course is reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during your risk assessment
The risk-based regulatory approach of ASQA requires RTOs to perform regular risk assessments. Student complaints about learning resources indicate it's time for assessment tool validation.
What Training Products Should Be Validated?
It's important to remember this validation ensures that all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs need to validate resources for each unit.
Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation
Training Materials
To validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set 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 – 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 – 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 Panel
Clause 1.11 sets out the requirements for validation panel members, stating that validation can be conducted by one or more individuals. RTOs generally require all trainers and assessors to be involved, sometimes including industry experts.
In total, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills applicable to the unit being validated
Up-to-date expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Either of the following training and assessment credentials:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its replacement
Assessment validation form/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 aids both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies seeing how each assessment item maps to 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 can also serve as proof that you have validated your resources before allowing students to use them.
While ASQA does not have a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, many templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to review the tools as a whole to see if they meet the principles of assessment.
Assessment Principles Form 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 strongly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to them. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Directions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Inspected?
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 Core Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment provide equal opportunity and access to all participants?
Flexibility – Are multiple options available in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment test what it is meant to test? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment produce the same results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?
Rules of Evidence
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 the evidence adequate to ensure 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 based on current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?
Despite being regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still have issues with these requirements.
To prevent employing learning resources that miss some unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:
Be Consistent with Your Teachings
Focus on the verbs used in the unit requirements and make sure they are addressed by the assessment item. For example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires students to:
Perform each of the following tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication per service and regulatory requirements:
nappy change
bottle preparation, bottle-feeding babies, and cleaning equipment
prepare solids and feed infants
respond suitably to infant signs and cues
prepare and settle babies for rest
monitor and promote 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.
Look Out for 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.
Mind 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 doesn’t suffice.
All Requirements or Not Competent
Observe the lists. As mentioned 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?
Provide More Detail
Each assessment item should have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important here 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?
Possible answers include:
Mandatory resources
Relevant costs
Activity timeframe
Appointed duties and responsibilities
When an assessment item calls for several answers, indicate the number of answers required from a student. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.
The same applies to assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that ask for more than one answer simultaneously. These can confuse both 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 might include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – work area isolation, engineering, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering
People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
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.