Among the numerous obligations RTOs face post-registration—annual declarations, AVETMISS reporting, marketing compliance—validation is often the most dreaded.

Although we have published several articles on validation, let’s revisit the term. ASQA describes validation as a quality review of the assessment process.

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.

The 2015 SRTOs Clause 1.8 requires RTOs to make sure their assessment systems, including RPL, are compliant with training package requirements and conducted per the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

The standards mandate two types of validation.

The first kind of assessment validation ensures your RTO's assessment adheres to the training package requirements within your scope.

The subsequent validation confirms that assessments are conducted according to the principles of assessment and rules of evidence.

Therefore, validation is conducted both before and after the assessment. This article emphasizes the first type: assessment tool validation.

Understanding the Two Types of Assessment Validation

Defining Assessment Validation

As previously discussed in our blogs, validation involves two processes: (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.

Post-assessment validation, in contrast, is about the implementation, requiring Registered Training Organisations to conduct assessments adhering to the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.

This discussion will center around assessment tool validation.

How to Conduct Assessment Tool Validation

After reviewing the two types of validation, let’s explore the specifics of assessment tool validation.

Timing for Conducting Assessment Tool Validation

Assessment tool validation ensures that all elements, performance criteria, and performance and knowledge evidence are included in 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 the next scheduled validation in your 5-year cycle. Immediately validate new resources to ensure they’re ready for student use.

Nonetheless, there are other reasons to conduct this type of validation. Perform assessment tool validation when you:

- you update your resources
- adding new training products on scope
- your course includes training product updates
- your risk assessment includes identifying your learning resources as a risk

ASQA applies a risk-based regulation approach, expecting RTOs to do regular risk assessments. Hence, student complaints about learning resources are a good reason for assessment tool validation.

Choosing Training Products for Validation

Keep in mind, this validation ensures compliance of all learning resources before use. All RTOs must validate resources for each unit.

Assessment Tool Validation: Required Resources

Training Materials

As you validate your assessment tools, you will need the complete set of your learning resources:

Mapping tool – this is the initial document to review. It identifies which assessment items address unit requirements, speeding up 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 – ensure that instructions for assessors are sufficient and clear benchmarks for each assessment item exist. 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.

Assessment Validation Panel

Clause 1.11 specifies the requirements for validation panel members. It states 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 validation panel must have:

Vocational competencies and industry skills relevant to the unit being validated

Current expertise and skills in vocational teaching and learning

Any one of the following training and assessment credentials:

TAE40116 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment or its future version

Assessment validation instrument/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 aids both the validation process and documentation. It simplifies seeing 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.
Simultaneously, it can serve as proof that you have validated your resources before they are used by students.

ASQA does not provide a recommended or required template for assessment tool validation, but many templates are available online. These tools generally have validators review the tools as a whole to determine if they meet the principles of assessment.

Assessment Principles Guide Yes/No/Partially Comments
1. Fair
2. Flexible
3. Valid
4. Reliable

Though these templates simplify validation, they can lead to judgment errors due to limited space for comments on each assessment item.

A more detailed template is highly recommended for inspecting each unit requirement and the assessment items that align with them. Below is an example:

Element Performance Criteria Assessment Guidelines Benchmarks Assessment Instrument Rectification Recommendations
What do you Need to Check?
What Needs Inspection?

As stated in our blog post Common Problems In Assessment Tools, you must ensure your assessment tools allow trainers to adhere to assessment principles and evidence rules.

Core Principles of Assessment
Fairness – Are equal opportunities and access offered to everyone in the assessment process?

Flexibility – Does the assessment provide multiple options to show competence according to various needs and preferences?

Validity – Does the assessment check here evaluate what it is intended to evaluate? Is it a valid tool for assessing the required skill or knowledge?

Reliability – Will the assessment achieve consistent results every time, no matter who conducts the training? Will different assessors consistently decide on skill competence?

Evidence Core Rules

Validity – Does the evidence prove that the candidate possesses 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 there sufficient evidence to confirm the learner has the required skills and knowledge?

Authenticity – Does the assessment tool confirm that the work is the candidate’s own?

Currency – Do the assessment tools mirror current units of competency and modern industry practices?

Although these are frequently covered in VET professional development and nationally recognised training, many tools still struggle to meet these requirements.

To prevent using learning resources that do not meet some unit requirements, make 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 example, in the unit CHCECE032 Nurture babies and toddlers, one performance evidence requirement asks students to:

Carry out 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:

nappy change

prepare bottles, feed babies from bottles, and clean equipment

solid foods preparation and feeding babies

respond suitably to infant signs and cues

settle babies for sleep and prepare them

monitor and foster age-appropriate physical exploration and gross motor skills

Having students describe changing nappies for babies under 12 months doesn’t directly fulfill the unit requirement. Unless it’s intended to assess underpinning knowledge (i.e., knowledge evidence), students should be doing the tasks.

Watch Out for the 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.
Pay attention to 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 isn’t enough.

All or No Competence

Mind the lists. Again, if students perform just 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?
Could You Be More Specific?

Each assessment item must have clear and specific benchmark answers to guide the assessor’s judgment on the student’s competence. Therefore, it’s crucial that your instructions do not confuse 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 may include:

Required resources

Associated expenses

Time required for activities

Assigned roles and responsibilities

When an assessment item requires multiple answers, specify how many answers a student must provide. This way, your assessment remains reliable, and the evidence collected is valid.

This is true for assessment items with double-barrelled questions or questions requiring more than one answer at the same time. These can confuse students and assessors, as shown in the sample question below:

Identify a hazard and/or environmental concern in the workplace and select the most effective hazard control hierarchy.

Possible answers could include, but are not limited to:

Weather conditions – isolating the work area, engineering controls, PPE

Work area and ground conditions – elimination, isolating, engineering controls

People – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Structural hazards – substitution, isolation, use of engineering controls

Chemical hazards – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Equipment or machinery – isolating, use of engineering controls, administration

Avoiding double-barrelled questions simplifies responses for students and allows assessors to judge competence accurately.

Given these requirements, you might think, “Don’t learning resource developers provide audit guarantees?” But such guarantees require you to wait for an audit before rectifying noncompliance. This impacts your compliance history, so it’s wiser to take the safe and compliant route.