What a Validity Argument Can Warrant from Public Documentation Alone: A Single-Case Documentary Analysis of the New Zealand Diploma in Business (Level 5), Accounting Strand

Abstract Purpose – This paper asks what a validity argument for a competency-based qualification can warrantusing only the public documentary record. No procedure within published applications of Kane's(2013) framework isolates what an external reader can establish from public documents alone. Thisstudy builds and demonstrates one. Design/methodology/approach – A single-case documentary analysis applies Kane's four-inferenceframework to the New Zealand Diploma in Business (Level 5, Ref 2459, v4), Accounting strand. Acorpus of 39 entries (29 unique documents) was coded on a three-state scale of Explicit, Implicit, andAbsent. A two-timepoint self-audit checked consistency. Findings – The public record cannot warrant the foundational Scoring inference, rated Absent at strandlevel: no skill standard is issued for Accounting GPOs 7-13 on the Directory of Assessment and SkillStandards. Because Kane's inferences are cumulative, the downstream inferences are each Implicit. Thegap lies in the national qualification specification, not in provider-level assessment design. Research limitations/implications – This single-case, single-coder study is frozen at one census date.Findings concern public inspectability, not enacted practice. The procedure suits jurisdictions with arich public regulatory trail. Originality/value – The paper formalises a procedure for auditing a validity argument under anexternal-transparency constraint, a position prior applications of Kane's framework do notestablish. It shows that a single-case analysis can reveal where a nationally listed qualificationleaves its foundational scoring warrant unavailable for public inspection. Keywords: Validity argument, Competency-based qualification, Kane's framework, Documentaryanalysis, Public inspectability, Quality assurance Paper type: Research paper