Validation Policy
RELEVANT STANDARD(S): Clauses 1.8, 1.9, 1.19, 1.11, 1.12 of the Standards for Registered Training Organisations 2015
PURPOSE
Sydney Rescue Consultantsis committed to providing quality training and assessment in accordance with the requirements of the Standards for Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) 2015. As such, Sydney Rescue Consultants implements a plan for ongoing systematic validation of assessment practices and judgements for each training product on its scope of registration.
SCOPE
This policy is set in place to ensure that Sydney Rescue Consultants undertakes an ongoing systematic validation of its training and assessment strategies, resources and assessment practices and judgments.
This policy covers:
- when assessment validation will occur;
- determination of which training products will be the focus of the validation;
- who will lead and participate in validation activities;
- how the outcomes of these activities will be documented and acted upon.
VALIDATION PRINCIPLES
Sydney Rescue Consultants conducts validation for the quality review of its training and assessment processes. This involves checking of the assessment tools to ensure it produces valid, reliable, sufficient, current and authentic evidence to enable reasonable judgements to be made as to whether the requirements of the training package or VET accredited courses are met. It includes reviewing a statistically valid sample of the assessments and making recommendations for future improvements to the assessment tool, process and/or outcomes and acting upon such recommendations.
Post Assessment Validation
Post Assessment validation involves the quality review of Sydney Rescue Consultants assessment processes, including checking that the application of assessment tools produce valid, sufficient, current and authentic evidence that enables reliable and consistent judgements to be made regardless of which assessor in making the judgement. It involves reviewing a statistically valid sample of the assessments and making recommendations for future improvements to the assessment tool, process and/or outcomes and acting upon such recommendations.
Sydney Rescue Consultantsuses a risk-based approach when developing the Post Assessment Validation Plan, considering risk indicators such as the potential safety concerns to clients from an assessment outcome that is not valid, the mode of delivery, changes to training packages and/or licensing requirements. Other considerations include taking into account the relative risks of all of the training products on the RTO’s scope of registration, including those risks identified by the VET Regulator.
Sydney Rescue Consultantswill ensure that a statistically valid sample of appropriate size is selected, to enable confidence that the result is sufficiently accurate, to be accepted as representative of the total population of assessments being validated. The method for determining the sample will vary depending on the number of completed assessments for the unit or subject being validated.
Sydney Rescue Consultants’ Post Assessment Validation will be conducted in accordance to the Post Assessment Validation Procedure document.
Sydney Rescue Consultants’ Post Assessment Validation activities will be led by of the following:
- Sydney Rescue Consultants’ Training Manager;
- Senior trainer and assessor;
- Appropriately skilled person/entity as determined by the Training Manager excluding any trainer and assessor who is directly involved in the delivery and assessment of the training product being validated.
Validation Schedule
The systematic validation of Sydney Rescue Consultants’ assessment practices and judgements is undertaken in accordance with Sydney Rescue Consultants’ Validation Calendar. The schedule ensures that each training product is validated at least once every five years, with at least 50% of products validated within the first three years of each five-year cycle prioritising identified high risk training products.
Validator Qualifications
Persons conducting or involved in Post Assessment Validation activities must individually or collectively hold:
- vocational competencies and current industry skills relevant to the assessment being validated;
- current knowledge and skills in vocational teaching and learning; and
- has the current training and assessment qualification or assessor skill set referred to in Schedule 1 of the SRTO 2015.
Resources Rectification
To ensure that all of Sydney Rescue Consultants’ training products are compliant to the Standards for Registered Training Organisation (RTOs) 2015 and the training package requirements, all resources are updated according to the results of validation in the soonest time possible, taking in consideration the relative risks brought about by the identified rectifications required.
MONITORING AND IMPROVEMENT
Sydney Rescue Consultants’ Training Manager is responsible for the validation process and ensuring that all trainers and assessors, including those from third party providers are compliant to the Standards for Registered Training Organisation (RTOs) 2015 and are making consistent judgements when conducting assessments.
Sydney Rescue Consultants trainers and assessors are responsible for:
- Implementing professional and effective assessment and validation practices;
- Implementing the assessment instruments and instructions provided for the process of conducting assessment; and
- Ensuring that assessments comply with the Principles of Assessment and Rules of Evidence.
All validation activities are monitored by the Training Manager of Sydney Rescue Consultants. They will ensure that areas for improvement identified during validation activities are acted upon following Sydney Rescue Consultants’ Continuous Improvement Policy principles.
Annex A
Principles of Assessment
| Fairness | The individual learner’s needs are considered in the assessment process. Where appropriate, reasonable adjustments are applied by the RTO to take into account the individual learner’s needs. The RTO informs the learner about the assessment process and provides the learner with the opportunity to challenge the result of the assessment and be reassessed if necessary. |
| Flexibility | Assessment is flexible to the individual learner by: reflecting the learner’s needs; assessing competencies held by the learner no matter how or where they have been acquired; anddrawing from a range of assessment methods and using those that are appropriate to the context, the unit of competency and associated assessment requirements, and the individual. |
| Validity | Any assessment decision of the RTO is justified, based on the evidence of performance of the individual learner. Validity requires: assessment against the unit/s of competency and the associated assessment requirements covers the broad range of skills and knowledge that are essential to competent performance; assessment of knowledge and skills is integrated with their practical application; assessment to be based on evidence that demonstrates that a learner could demonstrate these skills and knowledge in other similar situations; and judgement of competence is based on evidence of learner performance that is aligned to the unit/s of competency and associated assessment requirements. |
| Reliability | Evidence presented for assessment is consistently interpreted and assessment results are comparable irrespective of the assessor conducting the assessment. |
Rules of Evidence
| Validity | The assessor is assured that the learner has the skills, knowledge and attributes as described in the module or unit of competency and associated assessment requirements. |
| Sufficiency | The assessor is assured that the quality, quantity and relevance of the assessment evidence enables a judgement to be made of a learner’s competency. |
| Authenticity | The assessor is assured that the evidence presented for assessment is the learner’s own work. |
| Currency | The assessor is assured that the assessment evidence demonstrates current competency. This requires the assessment evidence to be from the present or the very recent past. |
Validation Process
(See Validation Procedure Document)
VERSION
v1.0
