Moderation

Moderation is a term that broadly covers the processes used for assuring the consistency of assessment against a required standard across a number of assessors or assessing organisations.

The Purpose of Moderation

“The purpose of moderation is to determine whether assessments are fair, valid and consistent in order to ensure that learners experience the highest quality of assessment practice possible, and to ensure that external stakeholders (for example, employers) can have confidence in the competence of graduates”

‘Good practice Moderation’ NZAPEP, ITP New Zealand and ITF publication

Careerforce Requirements

As a Standards Setting Body for both individual unit standards and specific qualifications, Careeforce requires organizations to be involved in various forms of moderation.

Moderation Plan

Click here to download the Moderation Plan for 2008.

Cluster Groups

Cluster Groups meet twice yearly and are arranged geographically throughout New Zealand. They are set up for each sector qualification.

Moderation of Workplace and Roving Assessors

Moderation is one of the critical functions that Careerforce implements to ensure that a high level of consistency of assessment by assessors is achieved and maintained.

Moderation of workplace assessors is undertaken through “peer review” moderation forums held in regions throughout New Zealand annually. Currently these are facilitated by the National Moderator for Careerforce, but in the future these forums may be facilitated by a Regional Moderator.

Peer Review forums

All workplace assessors will be assigned to a moderation peer review forum group. These groups will be regionally based, allowing assessors to work closely with peers who hopefully work nearby. As the number of workplace assessors increases, these groups may divide into smaller groups to cater for new assessors.

All active workplace assessors are required to participate, with the emphasis being placed on the content of the evidence gathered by the assessors (including workplace verification evidence). Where a workplace has more than one active assessor, the assessors participating at the Peer Review Forum should be on a rotating basis. This may mean that an assessor will be asked to present evidence assessed by other assessors within that workplace. At the Peer Review Forum the assessor’s role is that of a moderator. A Moderator checks that Assessors’ judgements are fair, valid and consistent.

Careerforce will inform assessors at least three months prior to any scheduled Peer Review Forum they are required to attend. In a situation where there is only one assessor in a workplace and where that assessor is unable to attend a scheduled forum, Careerforce will consider this and request the assessor submit a sample of evidence for post moderation. This sample may either be taken to a Peer Review Forum and considered with others, or moderated by the National Moderator.

Be December each year, the unit standards required for moderation in the following year will be determined and will be communicated to all assessors. It is the responsibility of each assessor to keep copies of trainee’s assessment portfolios for these nominated unit standards. As a guideline, Careerforce expects that 10% of portfolios are kept, with some from each of the categories - Not yet competent and Competent.

The materials brought to the Peer Review Forum should include:

• trainee assessment portfolios for each unit standard being moderated from each of the two categories, with the result clearly documented.
• copies of all verification evidence for these assessment portfolios.
• a copy of the unit standards (available at www.nzqa.govt.nz)
• the Careerforce assessor portfolio used for the assessment and any additional marking schedule if used.