After gaining registration, RTOs need to monitor several aspects including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, with validation being a major concern.
Though we've written extensively on validation, let's clarify it again. ASQA describes it as a quality assessment review.
To put it differently, validation is the process of confirming the accurate parts of an RTO's assessment process and identifying what can be enhanced. A correct understanding of its components makes it less intimidating.
According to SRTOs 2015 Clause 1.8, RTOs must ensure that their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with training package requirements and adhere to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards necessitate conducting two types of validation.
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.
This suggests we perform validation both before and after the assessment. This article will concentrate on the first type—assessment tool validation.
What are the Two Types of Assessment Validation?
Assessment Validation Explained
As noted earlier and in previous blog posts, validation comprises two stages: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.
Pre-assessment validation or assessment tool validation focuses on the first part of the clause, ensuring that all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are entirely compliant.
On the other hand, post-assessment validation deals with implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.
Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Having reviewed the two types of validation, let’s dive into the specifics of assessment tool validation.
Timing of Assessment Tool Validation
Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are included in your assessment tools.
Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing 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 for this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- resources are updated
- when new training products are added on scope
- your course gets reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources are identified as a risk during the risk assessment
ASQA's risk-based regulation approach requires RTOs to conduct regular risk assessments. Therefore, complaints from students about learning resources are a perfect time for assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
Remember, this type of validation is to ensure all learning resources are compliant before use. All RTOs should validate all unit resources.
Essential Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
Instructional Resources
Since you are validating your assessment tools, you will require the entire suite of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document you should look at. It highlights which assessment items meet unit requirements, accelerating validation.
Learner/student workbook – during validation, check if it's suitable as an assessment tool. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common gap.
Assessor guide/marking guide – confirm that instructions for assessors are adequate and clear benchmarks for each assessment item exist. Clear benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – these could be checklists, registers, and templates created separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate them to confirm they fit the assessment task and meet unit requirements.
Panel for Validation
Clause 1.11 defines the requirements for validation panel members, stating validation can involve one or more individuals. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to be present, sometimes including industry experts.
Together, your validation panel should possess:
Relevant vocational competencies and industry skills applicable to the unit being validated
Current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an updated 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 helps in both the validation process and documentation. It makes it simpler to see 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.
Additionally, it serves as documented proof that you have validated your resources before student use.
While ASQA does not recommend or require a specific template for assessment tool validation, numerous templates are available online. These tools generally require validators to examine the tools as a whole to see if they meet the principles of assessment.
Assessment Principles 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 Instructions for Assessment Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Review?
As outlined in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, your assessment tools must ensure trainers follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Key Principles
Fairness – Are equal opportunity and access ensured for everyone in the assessment process?
Flexibility – Does the assessment accommodate different options to demonstrate competence according to various needs and preferences?
Validity – Does the assessment measure what it is supposed to measure? Is it a valid tool for evaluating the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment yield the same results each time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make consistent decisions on skill competence?
Essential Rules of Evidence
Validity – Is the evidence verifying 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 enough to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Is the assessment tool proving that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Do the assessment tools correspond to current units of competency and industry practices?
Although these are regularly covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools still struggle to meet these requirements.
To prevent using learning resources that do not address some unit requirements, 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 example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement asks students to:
Carry out 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:
nappying
bottle preparation, feeding babies from bottles, and cleaning equipment
prepare solid foods and feed babies
respond properly to baby signs and cues
prepare and settle infants for sleep
monitor and foster age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly address the unit requirement. Unless it’s meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Mind 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.
Notice 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 is not sufficient.
Complete Compliance or Not Competent
Mind the lists. In the previous example, if students perform just 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?
Can You Clarify Further?
Each assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important that your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What information can be included in a work package?
Possible answers include:
Required materials
Related costs
Length of activities
Appointed roles and responsibilities
If an assessment item calls for several answers, specify the number of answers needed from a student. This ensures your assessment is reliable, and the evidence gathered 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 ASQA assessment validation guidelines example below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and pick the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Possible answers can include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolating, engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substituting, 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 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.