Upon receiving registration, RTOs must manage various responsibilities like annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, with validation being a notably arduous task.
Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes 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 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.
As per the standards, two kinds of validation are required.
The initial assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessments comply with the training package requirements.
The second validation ensures assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
It indicates that validation occurs both before and after the assessment. The focus here is on the first type: assessment tool validation.
An Overview of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Assessment Validation: An Explanation
As previously discussed in our blogs, validation involves two processes: (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.
Post-assessment validation, in contrast, is about ensuring the implementation side, where Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
This article will focus on assessment tool validation.
Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
Timing for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation aims to verify that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are covered by your assessment tools.
This means that whenever new learning resources are acquired, you must perform assessment tool validation before student use.
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.
Yet, this is not the only occasion to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:
- resources are updated
- adding new training products 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 regulatory approach means RTOs should conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources are a prime opportunity for assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
Keep in mind, this validation ensures that all learning resources comply before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Key Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Academic Resources
For validation of your assessment tools, you will require the full 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 – 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 – 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 – 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 Committee
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.
Collectively, your validation panel should have:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills that relate to the unit being validated
Up-to-date knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
One of these training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an equivalent successor
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 supports the validation process and documentation. It simplifies understanding 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.
At the same time, it acts as documentation that you have validated your resources before allowing student use.
ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates can be found online. These tools often have validators review the tools as a whole to verify if they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
While these templates simplify the validation process, they can introduce judgment errors because there is insufficient 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, you need to ensure that your assessment tools allow trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Essential Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Does the assessment provide equal opportunity and access to all participants?
Flexibility – Does the assessment offer various ways to demonstrate competence according to different needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment evaluate what it is meant to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for measuring the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment yield the same results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Rules of Evidence
Validity – Is the evidence confirming 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 confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool verifying that the work belongs to the candidate?
Currency – Do the assessment tools mirror current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Despite being frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still have issues with these requirements.
To avoid using learning resources that leave certain unit requirements unaddressed, ensure you adhere to these guidelines:
Live Up to Your Words
Pay 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:
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:
change nappies
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
prepare solid food and feed infants
respond to baby signs and cues appropriately
prepare and settle infants for sleep
monitor and foster age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students describe the process of changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing 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.
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.
Full Compliance or Not Competent
Pay attention to lists. As noted 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?
Be More Specific
Each assessment item must have clear and specific benchmark answers check here 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?
What sort of information can be included in a work package?
The answer can include:
Required resources
Pertinent costs
Time allocated for activities
Specified roles and responsibilities
When an assessment item demands multiple answers, indicate the number of answers a student must provide. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.
This is also true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or those that require multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental concern in the workplace and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers may include, but are not necessarily limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering
People – isolation, engineering, administration
Structural hazards – substitution, isolating, engineering controls
Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administrative controls
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to judge competence accurately.
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.