Overview
Registered Training Organisations are responsible for various responsibilities post-registration, like yearly reports, AVETMISS reporting, and promotional compliance. Among these tasks, validating assessments often stands out. While validation has been reviewed in several publications, let's return to the basics. ASQA identifies assessment review as a quality review of the assessment process.
In essence, assessment validation is focused on 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 require two types of validation. The initial type of assessment validation ensures compliance with the requirements of the training package within your RTO's scope. The other type ensures that assessments adhere to the principles of assessment and Rules of Evidence. This indicates that we perform validation both before and after the assessment. This article will focus on the initial type—validation of assessment tools.
Two Types of Assessment Validation
- Assessment Tool Validation: Also called pre-assessment validation or verification, involves the first part of the rule, focusing on meeting all unit requirements.
- Post-Assessment Validation: Deals with the implementation, ensuring RTOs conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Conducting Assessment Tool Validation
When Should Assessment Tool Validation Be Conducted?
The goal of validating assessment tools is to make sure that all elements, criteria for performance, and evidence of performance and knowledge are addressed by your assessment tools. Therefore, whenever you purchase new training materials, you must perform assessment tool validation prior to student use. There's no need to wait for your next scheduled validation. Check new resources immediately to ensure they are appropriate for students.
Nevertheless, this isn't the only occasion to conduct this type of validation. Do assessment tool validation also when you:
- Modify your resources
- Include new training products on scope
- Assess your course with training product updates
- Identify potential risks in your learning resources 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.
What Training Products Require Validation
Remember that this validation guarantees adherence of all training materials before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each course unit.
Necessary Resources for Assessment Tool Validation
To validate your evaluation tools, you will need the complete set of your educational resources:
- Mapping Tool: The first document to review. It indicates which assessment items meet course unit requirements, helping with faster validation.
- Student Workbook: Ensure it is suitable as an assessment resource during validation. Check if guidelines are clear and input 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 benchmarks are crucial for reliable assessment outcomes.
- Other Related Resources: These may include checklists, logs, and templates created separately from the learner workbook and marking guide. Validate these to ensure they suit the assessment activity and address subject requirements.
Panel for Validation
Regulation 1.11 specifies the requirements for panel members. It states assessment validation can be performed by one or more people. However, RTOs usually mandate all educators and assessors to participate, sometimes including industry experts.
Collectively, your panel must have:
- Vocational Competencies and Current Professional Skills relevant to the unit being validated.
- Updated Knowledge and Skills in Vocational Teaching and Learning.
- Either of the following certifications for training and assessment:
- TAE40116 Training and Assessment Certificate IV or its successor.
Principles of Assessment
- Fairness: Does the assessment process offer equal opportunity and access to everyone?
- Adaptability: Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
- Relevance: Does the assessment evaluate what it is intended to evaluate?
- Dependability: Are the assessment results consistent regardless of who conducts the training?
Rules of Evidence
- Relevance: Is the evidence relevant to the skills, knowledge, and attributes described in the unit of competency?
- Completeness: Is the evidence sufficient to cover all the required skills and knowledge?
- Originality: Is the evidence genuine and truly representative of the candidate's abilities?
- Currency: Does the evidence reflect current skills and knowledge?
Key Considerations for Assessment Validation
Pay attention to the verbs 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:
- Perform diaper changes
- Feed babies with bottles and clean equipment
- Feed babies with solid food
- Respond appropriately to baby signs and cues
- Get babies ready for sleep and settle them
- Observe and promote suitable physical activities and motor skills for babies
Common Pitfalls
Having students describe the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months old doesn’t directly meet the unit requirement. Unless the unit criteria is meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., evidence of knowledge), students should be doing the tasks.
Watch Out for the Plurals!
Pay attention to the numbers. In our example, one of the unit requirements of CHCECE032 Baby and Toddler Care 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 is not sufficient.
All or Nothing Competence
Pay attention to itemized requirements. As mentioned earlier, if students do not complete all the tasks listed, it’s not compliant. Each assessment item must meet all criteria, or the student is not yet competent, and the assessment method is not compliant.
Can You Be More Specific?
Each assessment task must have clear and specific standard answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s crucial that your directions do not confuse students or evaluators.
Avoid Double-Barrelled Questions
Avoiding double-barrelled questions makes it simpler for students to respond and for trainers to accurately evaluate student competence.
Assurance During Audits
Considering these requirements, you might wonder, “Don't resource developers provide audit guarantees?” However, with these promises, you must wait until an audit to address noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it's better to take a proactive and compliant approach.
By following these recommendations and understanding the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence, you can ensure that your evaluation tools are valid with the website regulations mandated by ASQA and the SRTOs 2015.