Overview
Training Organisations have numerous obligations upon registration, like yearly reports, AVETMISS data submission, and promotional compliance. Among these tasks, validating assessments often stands out. While validation has been reviewed in multiple discussions, a review of the basics is necessary. The Australian Skills Quality Authority identifies assessment validation as quality assurance of the assessment process.
Essentially, validation of assessments is concerned with identifying which parts of an RTO’s assessment procedures 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 Standards for RTOs 2015, 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 rules mandate two forms of validation. The initial type of validation of assessments ensures compliance with the requirements of the training package within your organisation's scope. The second validation ensures that assessments adhere to the Principles of Assessment and rules of evidence. This implies that validation is carried out both before and after the assessment. This article will discuss the primary type—assessment tool validation.
Types of Assessment Validation
- Assessment Tool Validation: Sometimes called pre-assessment validation or verification, pertains to the first part of the clause, ensuring meeting all unit requirements.
- Post-Assessment Validation: Deals with the conduct, verifying that RTOs conduct assessments according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Conducting Validation of Assessment Tools
Timing for Assessment Tool Validation
The goal of assessment tool validation is to ensure that all elements, criteria for performance, and evidence of performance and knowledge are addressed by your assessment methods. Therefore, whenever you get new educational resources, you must carry out validation of assessment tools before allowing students to use them. There's no need to wait for your next five-year validation cycle. Validate new tools right away to ensure they are suitable for student use.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion to perform this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation also when you:
- Enhance your resources
- Add new training products on scope
- Evaluate your course with training product updates
- Flag 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.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
Note that this validation ensures conformity of all learning resources before student use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Resources Required for Assessment Tool Validation
To validate your evaluation tools, you will need the complete set of your educational resources:
- Mapping Resource: The first document to review. It identifies which assessment tasks meet unit requirements, assisting in faster validation.
- Learner/Student Workbook: Ensure it is suitable as an assessment tool during validation. Check if guidelines are clear and input fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.
- Marking Guide: Also verify if guidelines for evaluators are sufficient and if clear criteria for each assessment task are provided. Clear criteria are crucial for reliable assessment results.
- Other Related Resources: These may include checklists, evaluation registers, and evaluation templates designed separately from the student workbook and assessor guide. Validate these to ensure they fit the assessment task and comply with subject requirements.
Assessment Validation Panel
Standard 1.11 specifies the requirements for members of the validation panel. It states validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually ask all trainers and evaluators to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Collectively, your assessment validation panel must have:
- Vocational Skills and Up-to-date Industry Skills relevant to the unit being validated.
- Current Expertise in Vocational Education.
- Either of the following credentials for training and assessment:
- TAE40116 Training and Assessment Certificate IV or its successor.
Principles of Assessment
- Fairness: Is equal opportunity and access provided to everyone in the assessment process?
- Flexibility: Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
- Validity: Is the assessment an accurate tool for evaluating the required skills and knowledge?
- Consistency: Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Guidelines for Evidence
- Relevance: Is the evidence relevant to the skills, knowledge, and attributes described in the unit of competency?
- Sufficiency: Is there enough evidence to ensure that the learner has the skills and knowledge required?
- Originality: Is the evidence genuine and truly representative of the candidate's abilities?
- Relevance: Is the evidence up-to-date with current industry practices?
Key Considerations for Assessment Validation
Pay attention to the tasks in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the evaluation task. For example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance criteria asks students to:
- Perform diaper changes
- Feed babies with bottles and clean equipment
- Prepare solid food and feed babies
- Respond to baby signs and cues properly
- Get babies ready for sleep and settle them
- Supervise and support age-appropriate physical activities and motor development
Frequent Errors
Asking students to describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old does not meet the unit requirement. Unless the unit requirement 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 quantities. In our example, one of the unit requirements of CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers requires 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.
Full Competence or Not Competent
Pay attention to itemized requirements. As mentioned earlier, if students perform only half the tasks listed, it’s not compliant. Each assessment task must Assessment validation requirements Australia meet all specifications, or the student is not yet competent, and the assessment tool is not compliant.
Be Specific!
Each assessment task must have clear and specific reference answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s crucial that your instructions do not baffle students or trainers.
Avoid Double-Barrelled Questions
Not using double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for assessors to accurately evaluate student competence.
Ensuring Audit Compliance
Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don't resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, with these guarantees, you must wait until an audit to address noncompliance. This influences your compliance status, so it's better to take a proactive and compliant approach.
By following these instructions and understanding the Principles of Assessment and rules of evidence, you can ensure that your evaluation tools are reliable with the requirements set by ASQA and the SRTOs 2015.