A unit of competency tells you what a person must be able to do and what evidence an assessor needs to see. Assessment that starts there is easier to validate, easier to explain and fairer to the learner.
Find the right text first
Every unit is published on training.gov.au, the national register. Open the unit by its code and check its status and release before you do anything else. Work from the register rather than an old copy on a shared drive, because the wording you map against needs to be the current wording.
Each unit also has a companion page of assessment requirements. Read the two together. Much of what an assessor needs is on the second page.
The parts that matter for assessment
- Elements
- The essential outcomes of the unit, in a few words each.
- Performance criteria
- The performance needed to show the element has been achieved. These usually become most of your rows.
- Foundation skills
- The language, literacy, numeracy and employment skills the work depends on. They help you set the reading and writing load of a task.
- Performance evidence
- What the person must actually do, sometimes with a stated number of times.
- Knowledge evidence
- What the person must know in order to do the work.
- Assessment conditions
- Where assessment happens, what must be available and any requirements for the assessor.
Build the matrix before the questions
A mapping matrix is a table. The rows come from the unit. The columns are your assessment tasks. Building it first means every task exists for a reason.
- List every performance criterion, performance evidence item and knowledge evidence item as its own row. Do not merge them.
- Choose methods that suit the evidence: written questions for knowledge, observation or a project for performance, and a third party report where workplace evidence supports the judgement.
- Mark each row with the specific task or question that produces the evidence. "Task 2" is vague. "Task 2, question 4" can be checked.
- Read across each row. A row with no mark is an orphan: something the unit requires and your tool does not collect.
- Read down each column. A task that maps to nothing may not belong in the tool at all.
Common ways a map goes wrong
- Matching on keywords. A question that mentions a term does not necessarily produce evidence of the skill.
- Using questions for performance. If the unit requires a person to do something, a written answer about it is not the same evidence.
- Missing the volume. Where performance evidence states how many times something must be done, the tool has to collect that many.
- Ignoring the conditions. If the unit specifies a setting or equipment, the instructions to the assessor should say so.
- Over-assessing. More assessment than the unit needs costs learners and assessors time, and does not add confidence.
What a matrix cannot tell you
A complete matrix shows coverage. It does not show that a task is pitched at the right level, that the instructions are clear, or that the evidence will be enough.
The principles of assessment (fairness, flexibility, validity and reliability) and the rules of evidence (validity, sufficiency, authenticity and currency) still apply, and those are judgements made by people. Under the Standards for RTOs 2025, validation sits at Standard 1.5 of the Outcome Standards, and your RTO remains responsible for it. ASQA's Standards for RTOs page is the place to check what is required.
Changing a tool without breaking the map
Contextualising usually means changing scenarios, workplace documents and equipment so a task fits your learners and your industry. Expect to make those edits, which is why the files need to be editable.
Check the matrix again after each change. Deleting one question can orphan a row without anyone noticing. Keep the matrix and the tool together, and keep a record of what you changed and why.
Writing it or buying it
You can do all of this yourself. If you would rather start from something, every assessment kit on the CAQA Resources store includes mapping for each unit of competency, in Microsoft Word. Either way, the checks above still apply.