Quality Validation Services Part of the CAQA group

Validation · a Quality Agency service

Validation asks whether your assessment judgements were right. That is a different question from whether your paperwork is tidy.

Independent validation of assessment judgements and of the tools themselves, with the evidence trail a panel can follow.

IWhat it is

Validation.

Independent validation of assessment judgements and of the tools themselves, with the evidence trail a panel can follow. We work with the organisation you actually are, not the one the policy manual describes, because the gap between those two is usually where the problem lives.

IIWhat is included

Three things, done properly.

i

Tool validation

Whether the instrument can actually collect the evidence the unit requires, before any learner sits it.

ii

Judgement validation

A sample of completed assessments reviewed against the rules of evidence, with the reasoning recorded.

iii

Independent panels

Validators with the vocational competency and currency the standards require, from outside your organisation.

IIIWhat goes wrong

The two failures we see most.

Neither of these is exotic. Both are common enough that it is worth checking your own arrangements against them before anyone else does.

Validating your own work

A panel made entirely of the people who wrote and marked the assessments is not independent, and is read that way at audit.

No record of the reasoning

A signed cover sheet saying validation occurred, with nothing showing what was examined or concluded, evidences a meeting rather than a validation.

Start a conversation.

Tell us what has happened, or what you think is about to. Either is a reasonable place to start.