Among the numerous obligations RTOs face post-registration—annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, marketing compliance—validation is often the most dreaded.
Though we've written extensively on validation, let's clarify it again. ASQA describes it as a quality assessment review.
Validation is the process of confirming accurate areas in an RTO's assessment process and pinpointing elements for improvement. With a correct understanding of its components, it’s less daunting.
As stated in Clause 1.8 of the SRTOs 2015, RTOs must ensure their assessment systems, including RPL, comply with the 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 second validation type ensures that assessments adhere to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.
It suggests that validation takes place before and after the assessment. This article focuses on the first type—assessment tool validation.
The Fundamentals of the Two Types of Assessment Validation
Breaking Down 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 assessment tool validation, is concerned with the first part of the clause, which ensures all unit requirements are met and that workbooks are fully compliant.
Conversely, post-assessment validation focuses on the implementation side, ensuring Registered Training Organisations conduct assessments in line with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
Our focus here will be on assessment tool validation.
How to Properly Conduct Assessment Tool Validation
With a grasp of the two validation types, let’s focus on assessment tool validation.
Timing for Conducting 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.
Therefore, any time you obtain new learning resources, assessment tool validation should be completed before students use them.
You don’t need to wait until your next 5-year validation schedule. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.
Still, this isn't the sole reason for conducting this type of validation. Conduct assessment tool validation when you:
- when resources are updated
- when new training products are added on scope
- your course includes training product updates
- you identify your learning resources as a risk during your risk assessment
The Australian Skills Quality Authority's risk-based approach to regulation means RTOs must conduct regular risk assessments. Complaints from students about learning resources signal the need for assessment tool validation.
Which Training Products Should You Validate?
Do not forget, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before they are used. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.
Resources Needed to Start Assessment Tool Validation
Course Materials
As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:
Mapping tool – the first document you should look at. It highlights which assessment items meet unit requirements, accelerating validation.
Learner/student workbook – ensure it's appropriate as an assessment tool. Check if the instructions are clear and answer fields are adequate. This is a frequent issue.
Assessor guide/marking guide – check that instructions for assessors are adequate and that there are clear benchmarks for each assessment item. Clear benchmarks are essential for reliable assessment outcomes.
Other related resources – may include checklists, registers, and templates developed separately from the workbook and marking guide. Validate these to ensure they suit the assessment task and address unit requirements.
Validation Group
Clause 1.11 defines the requirements for validation panel members, stating validation can involve one or more individuals. RTOs usually require all trainers and assessors to be present, sometimes including industry experts.
In total, your validation panel must have:
Vocational competencies and current industry skills relevant to the unit being validated
Current knowledge and skills related to vocational teaching and learning
Any one of the following training and assessment qualifications:
TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or an equivalent successor
Assessment validation form/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.
Having a validation tool supports the validation process and documentation. It simplifies understanding how each assessment item maps 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.
Additionally, it serves as documented proof that you have validated your resources before student use.
ASQA does not specify a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are accessible online. These tools usually have validators review the tools in their entirety to ensure they meet the principles of assessment.
Principles of Assessment Form Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable
Though these templates make validation easier, they can lead to judgment errors because they provide little room for comments on each assessment item.
We highly recommend using a more detailed template to inspect each unit requirement and its corresponding assessment items. Here is an example:
Element Performance Criteria Assessment Instructions Benchmarks Assessment Tools Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Requires Checking?
As we explained in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, it’s vital that your assessment tools enable trainers to follow assessment principles and evidence rules.
Assessment Core Principles
Fairness – Does the assessment provide equal opportunity and access to all participants?
Flexibility – Are different options Assessment validation process Australia available in the assessment to demonstrate competence based on individual needs and preferences?
Validity – Is the assessment assessing what it is intended to assess? Is it a valid tool for evaluating the required skill or knowledge?
Reliability – Will the assessment yield the same results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors make the same decision on skill competence?
Fundamental Rules of Evidence
Validity – Is the evidence showing 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 the evidence adequate to ensure the learner has the required skills and knowledge?
Authenticity – Does the assessment tool prove that the work is the candidate’s own?
Currency – Do the assessment tools reflect current units of competency and modern industry practices?
Even though these are often covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle with 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 instance, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement requires students to:
Perform each of the following tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old in a safe environment, using age-appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication per service and regulatory requirements:
diapering
prepare bottles, bottle feed infants, and clean equipment
prepare solids and feed infants
respond suitably to baby signs and cues
prepare and settle babies for sleep
monitor and support age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills
Having students describe the process of changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t meet the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess 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.
Mind the numbers. In our CHCECE032 example, one unit requirement asks students to complete the tasks at least once with two different babies under 12 months old. Doing the tasks twice with one baby doesn’t suffice.
Complete Compliance or Not Competent
Observe the lists. As mentioned 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?
Be Clearer
Each assessment item needs clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s important that your instructions are not confusing for students or assessors. For instance:
What kind of information can be included in a work package?
What sort of information can be included in a work package?
The answer might include:
Necessary resources
Associated expenses
Time span of activities
Allocated duties 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 those that require multiple answers at once. These can confuse students and assessors, as demonstrated in the sample question below:
Name a hazard and/or environmental issue in the work area and choose the most effective hazard control hierarchy.
Answers may include, but are not limited to:
Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, personal protective equipment
Work area and ground conditions – eliminating hazards, isolation, use of engineering controls
People – isolation, engineering, administrative controls
Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, engineering
Chemical hazards – isolation, engineering, administration
Equipment or machinery – isolation, engineering controls, administration
Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to judge competence accurately.
Seeing these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers offer audit guarantees?” But such guarantees mean you must wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This affects your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.