Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) must manage numerous responsibilities after receiving their registration, such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance. Among these tasks, the one that often stands out as particularly challenging is assessment validation.
Assessment validation is defined by ASQA as a quality review of the assessment process. Essentially, it involves verifying which areas of an RTO’s assessment process are accurate and identifying elements that need improvement. With a proper understanding of its key components, assessment validation becomes 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.
Types of Assessment Validation
The standards require RTOs to conduct two types of validation:
- Assessment Tool Validation: This type ensures that your RTO’s assessment tools comply with the assessment requirements of the training package in your scope.
- Post-Assessment Validation: This type ensures that assessments are conducted following the principles of assessment and the rules of evidence.
This implies that validation occurs both before and after the assessment. This article will focus on the first type—assessment tool validation.
How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Understanding the distinct types of validation, we can now delve into the specifics of assessment tool validation.
When to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation aims to ensure all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your assessment tools. This means anytime you purchase new learning resources, you conduct assessment tool validation before you let your student use the resources.
There’s no need to wait for the next validation schedule in your 5-year cycle. Validate new resources immediately to ensure they are suitable for student use.
Other reasons to conduct assessment tool validation include:
- Updating your resources
- Adding new training products on scope
- Reviewing your course against training product updates
- Identifying your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority applies a risk-based approach to regulating RTOs and expects regular risk assessments. Student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products Will You Validate?
Remember that this type of validation aims to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs are expected to validate all resources for each unit.
What Resources Do You Need to Get Started on Your Assessment Tool Validation?
Learning Resources
To validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:
- Mapping tool – the first document to review. It indicates which assessment items meet unit requirements, aiding in faster 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 – 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 – 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.
Validation Panel
Clause 1.11 specifies the requirements for validation panel members. It states validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Collectively, your validation panel must have:
- Vocational competencies and current industry skills relevant to the unit being validated
- Current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
- Any of the following training and assessment credentials:
- TAE40122 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, or its successor, or
- TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, or
- TAE40110 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, plus:
- TAELLN411 Address adult language, literacy and numeracy skills or its successor, or
- TAELLN401A Address adult language, literacy and numeracy skills
- And one of the following:
- TAEASS502 Design and develop assessment tools or its successor, or
- TAEASS502A Design and develop assessment tools, or
- TAEASS502B Design and develop assessment tools
Validation Tool/Template
Using a validation tool facilitates both the validation process and documentation. It helps you see how each assessment item aligns with unit requirements.
Additionally, it serves as documented proof that you have validated your resources before 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 | Yes/No/Partially | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Fair | ||
| 2. Flexible | ||
| 3. Valid | ||
| 4. Reliable |
While templates like these make validation easier, they also allow for judgment errors since there is little room for commenting on each assessment item.
We highly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Here is an example:
| Element | Performance Criteria | Assessment Instructions | Benchmarks | Assessment Instrument | Rectification Recommendations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 1.1 1.2 |
What Do You Need to Check?
As discussed in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you must ensure that your assessment tools allow your trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.
Principles of Assessment
- Fairness – Does everyone have equal opportunity and access to the assessment process?
- Flexibility – Does the assessment provide different options to demonstrate competence according to different needs and preferences?
- Validity – Does the assessment evaluate what it is intended to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?
- Reliability – Will the assessment produce consistent results every time, regardless of who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Rules of Evidence
- Validity – Does the evidence demonstrate 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?
- Authenticity – Does the assessment tool verify 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?
Although these are frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle to meet these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that fail to address some unit requirements, ensure you follow these guidelines:
- Walk the Talk
Pay attention to the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the assessment item. For example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement asks students to:
Complete 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 according to service and regulatory requirements:
- Change nappies
- Prepare bottle, bottle feed babies and clean equipment
- Prepare solid food and feed babies
- Respond appropriately to baby signs and cues
- Prepare and settle babies for sleep
- Monitor and encourage age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
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.
- Watch Out for 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.
- All or Not Competent
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?
Each assessment item must have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s crucial that your instructions do not confuse students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
The answer may include:
- Required resources
- Applicable costs
- Activity duration
- Assigned roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify the number of answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is 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 issue in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers may include, but are not limited to:
- Weather conditions – isolation of work area, engineering, PPE
- Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering
- People – isolation, engineering, administration
- Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering
- Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administration
- Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” However, with these guarantees, you must wait for an audit before they help rectify noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s better to take a safe and compliant approach.
