Assessment tools should be validated at various stages of their development and use. We've already talked about the cross-checking process you need to carry out on a draft assessment tool before it's put into use (in Reviewing assessment tools), which is a form of validation. But this isn't the end of the matter. Assessment tools still need to be validated periodically, to ensure that they remain current and are doing the job properly.

Below are some questions you could ask when you're looking at the assessment tools you use and the decisions you make, and comparing them to the tools used and decisions made by other assessors. Note that many of these questions are similar to the sorts of questions you would ask when reviewing your draft assessment tool.

Questions to ask

• Do your assessment tasks reflect actual workplace conditions?
  
  
• Are you assessing the whole unit of competency, and are all components adequately covered?
  
  
• Is the duration of the assessment event efficient and practical?
  
  
• Is the evidence you're collecting valid?
  
  
• Are there adequate instructions provided for the assessor, and are the benchmarks for performance clear?
  
  
• Are instructions provided to the candidate on how the process will be undertaken and what is required of them?
  
  
• Do you collect more than one piece of evidence?
  
  
• Do you collect evidence in a range of contexts?
  
  
• Are you collecting enough evidence to make a sound decision?
  
  
• Are you able to make consistent decisions with different candidates, and are different assessors able to make consistent decisions between them?Are you collecting enough evidence to make a sound decision?
  
  

Making changes

One of the most important part of the validation and review process is establishing what improvements need to be made, and how you're going to make them. So once you've decided on any changes required, you should draw up a plan showing how you're going to implement them.

This includes writing down:

• which parts of the tools, procedures or decision making process need to be changed
  
  
• what changes need to be made
  
  
• who needs to be involved in making the changes
  
  
• when it is going to get done
  
  
• who was involved in the 'moderation' session when the review was undertaken.

When you have finished making the changes, you can put the new system into action to see how it goes.

Once you've given everyone time to get used to it, you should review it again at your next moderation meeting. This is how the 'continuous improvement' cycle works, where the processes and materials you use continue to get better bit by bit as you use them, review them and improve them.

For a definitive outline from ASQA on the validation process, go to the fact sheet: Conducting validation.