{Assessment Validation Guide concerning Vocational Education Bodies across the Australian context :

{Assessment Validation Guide concerning Vocational Education Bodies across the Australian context :

Blog Article

Introduction

Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) handle numerous duties following registration, like annual statements, AVETMISS compliance, and advertising compliance. Among these tasks, validation of assessments is particularly challenging. While we've discussed validation in several posts, a review of the basics is necessary. ASQA describes assessment review as a quality review of the assessment procedure.

Fundamentally, validation of assessments 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 require two types of validation. The primary type of validation of assessments 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 validation is performed both before and after the assessment. This article will concentrate on the initial type—validation of assessment tools.

Differentiating Assessment Validation Types

- Assessment Tool Validation: Referred to as pre-assessment validation or verification, is related to the initial part of the clause, aimed at ensuring all unit requirements are met.
- Post-Assessment Validation: Concerns the implementation, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

Scheduling Assessment Tool Validation

The goal of validating assessment tools is to ensure that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are addressed by your evaluation tools. Therefore, whenever you acquire new learning resources, you must perform assessment tool validation before allowing students to use them. There's no need to wait for your next five-year validation cycle. Review new resources as soon as possible to ensure they are fit for student use.

Nevertheless, this isn't the only reason to conduct this type of validation. Do validation of assessment tools also when you:

- Amend your resources
- Integrate new training products on scope
- Compare 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.

Training Products to Validate

Note that this validation ensures conformity of all educational resources before use. All RTOs must validate training products for each subject unit.

Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation

To start assessment tool validation, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:

- Mapping Document: The first document to review. It shows which assessment tasks meet subject requirements, assisting in faster validation.
- Learner/Student Workbook: Ensure it is suitable as an assessment tool during validation. Check if instructions are clear and answer fields are sufficient. This is a common issue.
- Assessor Guide/Marking Guide: Also verify if guidelines for evaluators are sufficient and if clear benchmarks for each assessment task are provided. Clear standards are crucial for reliable assessment results.
- Supplementary Resources: These may include evaluation checklists, logs, and templates designed separately from the learner workbook and marking guide. Validate these to ensure they match the evaluation task and comply with course unit requirements.

Validation Panel

Regulation 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 evaluators to participate, sometimes including field experts.

Collectively, your panel must have:

- Workplace Competencies and Up-to-date Industry Skills relevant to the unit being validated.
- Updated Knowledge and Skills in Vocational Training.
- Either of the following certifications for training and assessment:
- TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its successor.

Principles Guiding Assessment

- Impartiality: Does the assessment process offer equal opportunity and access to everyone?
- Flexibility: Does the assessment offer various options to demonstrate competence based on different needs and preferences?
- Relevance: Is the assessment relevant to the skills and knowledge it aims to evaluate?
- Consistency: Are the assessment results consistent regardless of who conducts the training?

Rules of Evidence

- Relevance: Does the evidence demonstrate that the candidate has the skills, knowledge, and attributes described in the unit of competency and associated assessment requirements?
- Adequacy: Is the evidence sufficient to cover all the required skills and knowledge?
- Originality: Does the assessment tool verify that the work is the candidate’s own?
- Currency: Is the evidence up-to-date with current industry practices?

Key Considerations for Assessment Validation

Pay attention to the verbs in the unit requirements and ensure they are addressed by the assessment item. For example, in the unit CHCECE032 Caring for Babies and Toddlers, one required performance evidence asks students to:

- Change diapers
- Prepare bottles, bottle feed babies and clean equipment
- more info Prepare solid food and feed babies
- Respond to baby signs and cues properly
- Prepare and settle babies for sleep
- Monitor and encourage age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills

Typical Mistakes

Describing the nappy-changing process for babies under 12 months does not fulfill the unit requirement. Unless the unit criteria is meant to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., evidence of knowledge), students should be doing the tasks.

Be Careful with Plurals!

Pay attention to the numbers. In our example, one of the unit requirements of CHCECE032 Baby and Toddler Care 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 enumerated tasks. As mentioned earlier, if students do not complete all the tasks listed, it’s non-compliant. Each evaluation task must meet all requirements, or the student is not yet competent, and the assessment method is not compliant.

Provide Specific Details

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 evaluators.

Avoid Double-Barrelled Questions

Steering clear of double-barrelled questions makes it more straightforward for students to respond and for trainers to accurately assess 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 for an audit before they assist with noncompliance. This impacts your compliance record, so it's better to take a preventative and compliant approach.

By following these recommendations and understanding the principles of assessment and Rules of Evidence, you can ensure that your assessment methods are valid with the standards established by ASQA and the SRTOs 2015.