Validating or quality checking your assessment tools before implementation ensures that the resources are fit for purpose and meet the requirements of the specific units of competencies and the evidence collected from students meets the principles of assessment and rules of evidence. It also ensures that your assessment mapping is accurate and confirms the process has been done correctly. The following advice for RTOs can help you quality assure your assessment tools before you use them with students.

Table of Contents

Quality assurance of assessment tools:

Whether you develop your resources in-house or purchase them from an external writer you need to ensure that you have undertaken the necessary checks to determine that your assessment tools are appropriate to implement in your delivery. By reviewing the assessment tools you can confirm that they will produce valid, reliable, sufficient, current and authentic evidence and they meet the requirements of the unit of competency. The process of quality checking your assessment tools before implementation should involve assessors and other parties such as members of your quality team or staff such as literacy and numeracy specialists working collaboratively to focus on the aspects such as design of the assessment process; identification of what evidence to be collected; development of assessment tasks and instruments in the required RTO format and consultation with industry.

Assessment mapping matrix:

A mapping document enhances the quality of assessment and should be developed with your tools for each unit of competency to show where all of the requirements have been addressed in the resources. A mapping can evidence that you have checked the validity of the assessment tool when developed or purchased and confirms its compliance. It is a useful document to refer to when quality checking assessment tools before implementation in your RTO. It also supports version control of assessment tools to ensure that the most current resource is used by assessors when referred to. RTOs should consider having compliance staff review mapping documents before finalising assessment tools as an independent check prior to use. While having a mapping document is not a compliance requirement it is useful to help RTOs confirm all requirements have been addressed in resources. You are not obliged to provide this document to auditors in the event of an external audit although it can be used by RTOs in this scenario as a quick reference.

What to look for when quality checking assessment tools:

It is important to make sure that assessment tools meet all the requirements of the relevant unit of competency so evidence to be collected is adequate or sufficient. This can be confirmed by checking the assessment mapping matrix is accurate and aligned to assessment tasks/instruments provided. When checking practical assessment tasks make sure that there are sufficient benchmarks in the observation checklists for each skill / behaviour to be demonstrated as required by performance criteria and performance evidence. Ensure that your practicals also have sufficient instructions for assessors and students in conducting role plays / scenarios to ensure consistency with assessment conditions. Another important check to undertake is to ensure that assessment tools make provision for the assessors decision making and recording of judgement of competency.