Assessment Validation Overview
Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) have various duties post-registration, like yearly declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing adherence. Among these tasks, validating assessments is particularly challenging. While we've discussed validation in several articles, a review of the basics is necessary. ASQA (Australian Skills Quality Authority) defines assessment review as granular review of the assessment procedure.
Fundamentally, assessment review is about identifying which parts of an RTO’s assessment methods are effective and which need improvement. With a proper grasp of its key aspects, validation becomes less daunting. According to Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015 regulations, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the training package requirements and are conducted according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards specify two forms of validation. The first type of assessment review checks conformity with the training package assessment requirements within your RTO's scope. The second validation guarantees that assessments are conducted according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence. This suggests that we perform validation both before and after the assessment. This article will concentrate on the primary type—assessment tool validation.
The Two Types of Assessment Validation
- Assessment Tool Validation: Often termed pre-assessment validation or verification, concerns the initial part of the regulation, ensuring meeting all unit requirements.
- Post-Assessment Validation: Involves the implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Timing for Assessment Tool Validation
The goal of assessment tool validation is to verify that all elements, performance criteria, and evidence of performance and knowledge are addressed by your assessment tools. Therefore, whenever you obtain new learning resources, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them. There's no need to wait for your next five-year validation cycle. Review new resources right away to confirm they are fit for student use.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:
- Amend your resources
- Add new qualifications to scope
- Evaluate your course with training product updates
- Recognise your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
ASQA uses a risk-based approach for regulating RTOs and requires regular risk assessments. Therefore, student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.
What Training Products Require Validation
Note that this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before being used. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation
To validate your evaluation tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:
- Mapping Resource: The first document to review. It shows which assessment items meet unit requirements, helping with faster validation.
- Learner/Student Workbook: Ensure it is suitable as an assessment tool during validation. Check if instructions are clear and input fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.
- Assessor Guide: Also ensure if guidelines for evaluators are sufficient and if clear criteria for each evaluation item are provided. Clear standards are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.
- Additional Resources: These may include checklists, registers, and forms designed separately from the workbook and assessor guide. Validate these to ensure they fit the assessment task and comply with subject requirements.
Panel for Validation
Standard 1.11 specifies the requirements for panel members. It states validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually ask all educators and assessors to participate, sometimes including sector experts.
Collectively, your assessment validation panel must have:
- Vocational Competencies and Current Industry Skills relevant to the validated unit.
- Updated Knowledge and Skills in Vocational Education.
- Either of the following training and assessment credentials:
- TAE40116 Training and Assessment Certificate IV or its successor.
Principles Guiding Assessment
- Impartiality: Is the assessment process fair and equitable for all candidates?
- Versatility: Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
- Accuracy: Is the assessment relevant to the skills and knowledge it aims to evaluate?
- Dependability: Are the assessment results consistent regardless of who conducts the training?
Evidence Rules
- Relevance: Is the evidence appropriate to the requirements of the unit of competency?
- Adequacy: Is there enough evidence to ensure that the learner has the skills and knowledge required?
- Originality: Does the evidence confirm the originality of the candidate's work?
- Currency: Are the assessment tools based on current units of competency and up-to-date industry practices?
Important Factors in Assessment Validation
Pay attention to the action words in the unit criteria and ensure they are addressed by the evaluation task. For example, in the unit CHCECE032 Baby and Toddler Care, one performance criteria asks students to:
- Change nappies
- Prepare bottles, bottle feed babies and clean equipment
- Feed babies with solid food
- React suitably to baby signals and cues
- Get babies ready for sleep and settle them
- Supervise and support age-appropriate physical activities and motor development
Typical Mistakes
Describing the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months does not fulfill the unit requirement. Unless the unit specification is meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge-based evidence), students should be carrying out the tasks.
Watch Out for the Plurals!
Pay attention to the numbers. In our example, one of the unit requirements of CHCECE032 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 one baby won’t cut it.
All or Nothing Competence
Pay attention to enumerated tasks. As mentioned earlier, if students do not complete all the tasks listed, it’s out of compliance. Each assessment task must cover all requirements, or the read more student is not yet competent, and the assessment tool is non-compliant.
Provide Specific Details
Each assessment item must have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the evaluator’s decision on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s crucial that your instructions do not confuse students or assessors.
Double-Barrelled Questions: Avoid Them
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.
Audit Guarantees
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 assist with noncompliance. This impacts your compliance record, so it's better to take a safe and compliant approach.
By following these guidelines and understanding the Principles of Assessment and evidence rules, you can ensure that your assessment methods are compliant with the requirements set by ASQA and the SRTOs 2015.