Overview of Assessment Validation
RTOs manage numerous obligations post-registration, including annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, and marketing compliance. Among these tasks, validating assessments is particularly challenging. While validation has been covered in many posts, a review of the basics is necessary. ASQA describes assessment review as granular review of the evaluation process.
At its core, assessment review is designed to identify which parts of an RTO's assessment process 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, adhere to the training package requirements and are conducted according to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
The standards mandate two forms of validation. The initial type of assessment review ensures compliance with the training package assessment requirements within your organisation's scope. The second validation ensures that assessments follow the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence. This implies that validation is carried out pre- and post-assessment. This article will focus on the initial type—assessment tool validation.
Two Types of Assessment Validation
- Assessment Tool Validation: Also known as pre-assessment validation or verification, concerns the primary part of the rule, focusing on ensuring all unit requirements are met.
- Post-Assessment Validation: Involves the execution, ensuring RTOs conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Process of Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
Scheduling Assessment Tool Validation
The goal of validating assessment tools is to ensure that all components, performance criteria, and evidence of performance and knowledge are covered by your assessment methods. Therefore, whenever you obtain new learning resources, you must conduct validation of assessment tools before students use them. There's no need to wait for your next five-year validation cycle. Check new materials as soon as possible to verify they are suitable for student use.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only time to perform this type of validation. Do validation of assessment tools also when you:
- Enhance your resources
- Expand with new training products on scope
- Examine your course with training product updates
- Detect your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority employs a risk-based approach for regulating RTOs and expects regular risk assessments. Therefore, student complaints about learning resources are an ideal time to conduct assessment tool validation.
Selecting Training Products for Validation
Bear in mind that this validation ensures compliance of all educational resources before being used. All RTOs must validate materials for each subject unit.
Necessary Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
To start assessment tool validation, you will need the complete set of your training materials:
- Mapping Resource: The first document to review. It identifies which assessment items meet course unit requirements, assisting in faster validation.
- Learner/Student Workbook: Ensure it is suitable as an evaluation tool during validation. Check if directions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.
- Assessor Guide/Marking Guide: Also verify if instructions for assessors are sufficient and if clear benchmarks for each assessment item are provided. Clear criteria are crucial for reliable assessment results.
- Other Related Resources: These may include evaluation checklists, logs, and templates developed separately from the workbook and evaluation guide. Validate these to ensure they fit the evaluation task and address subject requirements.
Assessment Validation Panel
Standard 1.11 specifies the requirements for members of the validation panel. It states assessment validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Collectively, your panel must have:
- Vocational Skills and Current Professional Skills relevant to the unit being validated.
- Current Expertise in Vocational Education.
- Either of the following credentials for training and assessment:
- Certificate IV in Training and Assessment TAE40116 or its successor.
Principles Guiding Assessment
- Impartiality: Does the assessment process offer equal opportunity and access to everyone?
- Adaptability: Are there multiple ways to demonstrate competence, accommodating different needs and preferences?
- Validity: Is the assessment an accurate tool for evaluating the required skills and knowledge?
- Reliability: Will the assessment produce consistent results every time?
Rules of Evidence
- Relevance: Is the evidence relevant to the skills, knowledge, and attributes described in the unit of competency?
- Sufficiency: Is this site there enough evidence to ensure that the learner has the skills and knowledge required?
- Genuineness: Does the assessment tool verify that the work is the candidate’s own?
- Currency: Does the evidence reflect current skills and knowledge?
Important Factors in Assessment Validation
Pay attention to the action words in the unit criteria and ensure they are addressed by the assessment task. For example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one required performance evidence asks students to:
- Change nappies
- Prepare bottles, bottle feed babies and clean equipment
- Prepare solid food and feed babies
- Respond to baby signs and cues properly
- Prepare babies for sleep and help them settle
- Monitor and encourage age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
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 specification is meant to evaluate underlying knowledge (i.e., knowledge-based evidence), students should be performing the tasks.
Mind the Plurals!
Pay attention to the frequency. In our example, one of the unit requirements of CHCECE032 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 is not sufficient.
Full Competence or Not Competent
Pay attention to enumerated tasks. As mentioned earlier, if students perform only half the tasks listed, it’s non-compliant. Each assessment item must cover all criteria, or the student is not yet competent, and the assessment tool is out of compliance.
Be Specific!
Each evaluation task must have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s crucial that your guidelines do not confuse students or evaluators.
Double-Barrelled Questions: Avoid Them
Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it easier for students to respond and for assessors to accurately assess student competence.
Audit Guarantees
Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don't resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, with these assurances, you must wait until an audit to address noncompliance. This impacts your compliance record, so it's better to take a preventative and compliant approach.
By following these instructions and understanding the principles of assessment and rules of evidence, you can ensure that your assessment tools are valid with the regulations mandated by ASQA and the SRTOs 2015.