All About Assessment Validation and How to Validate Assessments

RTOs face many tasks after registration, such as annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance, but validation is typically the most daunting.

Despite our extensive coverage on validation, let's re-examine the term. ASQA states that validation is a quality check of the assessment process.

Simply put, validation confirms which aspects of an RTO's assessment process are right and identifies where improvements are needed. A clear understanding of its main 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.

As per the standards, two kinds of validation are required.

The first type of validation ensures that your RTO's assessment meets the requirements of the training package within your scope.

The next validation ensures that assessments are conducted per 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.

Breaking Down the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Unraveling Assessment Validation

As mentioned earlier and in our earlier blog entries, validation is divided into two parts: (1) assessment tool validation and (2) post-assessment validation.

Pre-assessment validation or verification, also known as assessment tool validation, relates to the first part of the clause, ensuring all unit requirements are met and workbooks are 100% compliant.

On the other hand, post-assessment validation deals with implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This piece will highlight assessment tool validation.

How Assessment Tool Validation is Conducted

Having distinguished between the two types of validation, let’s dive into the details of assessment tool validation.

When to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

Assessment tool validation is intended to confirm that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are met by your assessment tools.

Thus, whenever new learning resources are purchased, you must conduct assessment tool validation before allowing student use.

You don’t need to wait until the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.

Still, this isn't the only reason to perform this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation also when you:

- updating your resources
- adding new training products on scope
- course gets reviewed against training product updates
- learning resources get identified as a risk during your risk assessment

ASQA's risk-based regulation approach means RTOs should perform regular risk assessments. If students complain about learning resources, it's a perfect 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 first document to check. It indicates which assessment items align with unit requirements, making validation faster.

Learner/student workbook – check its suitability as an assessment tool during validation. Ensure instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.

Assessor guide/marking guide – confirm that instructions for assessors are adequate and clear benchmarks for each assessment item are present. 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 Team

Clause 1.11 outlines the criteria for validation panel members, specifying that validation can be done by one or more people. RTOs typically require all trainers and assessors to participate, occasionally inviting industry experts.

The members of your validation panel must collectively have:

Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to the unit being validated

Recent expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or the successor version

Validation checklist/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.
A validation tool assists in both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies identifying how each assessment item corresponds 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 also acts as evidence that you have validated your resources prior to 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.

Assessment Principles Checklist Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

Though these templates make validation easier, they often result in judgment errors due to limited space for comments on each assessment item.

It is highly recommended to use a more detailed template for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that map to them. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Guidelines Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Should Be Checked?

As stated in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you must ensure your assessment tools allow trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunity and access ensured for everyone in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Does the assessment offer multiple ways to show competence according to different needs and preferences?

Validity – Is the assessment testing what it is meant to test? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment achieve consistent results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?

Essential Rules of Evidence

Validity – Does the evidence confirm 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 there sufficient evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool ensure that the work belongs to the candidate?

Currency – Are the assessment tools aligned with current units of competency and contemporary industry practices?

Even though these are regularly addressed in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, numerous tools fail to meet these requirements.

To avoid employing learning resources that fail to meet all unit requirements, be sure to follow these guidelines:

Demonstrate What You Teach

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 activities 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:

diapering

bottle preparation, bottle-feeding infants, and cleaning equipment

prepare solids and feed infants

respond suitably to baby signs and cues

prepare and settle babies for rest

monitor and encourage age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills

Getting students to describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless the requirement assesses underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be performing the tasks.

Pay Attention to 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 sufficient.

All or Nothing

Pay attention to lists. As illustrated 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?
Can You Be More Specific?

Every assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on student competence. Thus, ensure your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For example:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What kinds of information can be included in a work package?

The answer might include:

Essential resources

Relevant expenses

Activity duration

Specified roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item requires multiple answers, indicate the number of answers needed from a student. This way, your assessment is reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.

This is also true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions that require more than one answer at once. Such questions can confuse both students and assessors, as illustrated in the example below:

Identify a hazard and/or environmental concern in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Answers might include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering, personal protective equipment

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolation, engineering

People – isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, engineering, administration

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to answer and for assessors to accurately judge student competence.

Given these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit ASQA assessment validation guidelines guarantees?” But such guarantees require you to wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.