Quality assurance of assessment decisions
One of the objectives of the BAA’s quality assurance of the Assessment Centre Certification and Examination process is to achieve consistency of examination decisions. The responsibility for examination decisions lies with the Assessment Centre, and the role of the BAA is to provide moderation feedback (verification of outcomes). However as TPQI staff identified, the observation visits focus on system and procedure compliance rather than the validity of assessment decisions and ‘moderation’ feedback is not provided.
‘Internal’ quality assurance of examiner decisions is the responsibility of an Assessment Centre committee that currently still checks 100% of examiner decisions. This is to comply with ISO17024 requirements. NZQA continues to caution the practicality and value of this approach. As assessment activities scale up, adherence to this policy will demand a huge investment of time and resources. NZQA has previously recommended that TPQI considers adopt a sampling approach to the moderation of assessment decisions.
There are no processes yet in place yet for inter-Assessment Centre consistency checks. While the use of the common assessment tools somewhat mitigates this risk, the reliance on assessors’ professional judgements and less detailed assessment schedules, still allows for the potential of considerable variance to occur across Assessment Centres.
Use of Assessment Tools
Another emerging issue is the non-use by examiners of the assessment tools that accompany the occupational standards by examiners. BAA staff noted that some examiners had been observed using their own assessments or not following assessment tool guidelines in decision-making. This situation appears to have arisen due to examiner complaints over the impracticability (overly complex or not fit-for-purpose) of some of the centrally designed assessment tools, the lack of detail or insufficient evidence guidance in assessment schedules, or simply deciding they ‘knew better’. This issue links to that of quality design identified by the BNPQS.
TPQI self assessment
TPQI staff identified the following specific concerns:
• the need for a clear point of accountability in the process of certification of assessment centres
• observation visits focus on checking examination procedure have been correctly followed but lack ways to verify the outcomes of the procedure (consistency of examination decision by examiners)
• compliance procedures need to be designed to reflect a ‘high trust, high accountability’ philosophy
• quality assurance measures need to be designed to achieve consistency of examiner decisions (across Assessment Centres, different examiner groups, different examination periods etc.)
To address some of these concerns, TPQI staff proposed actions and/or recommendations are:
• to identify key areas which need compliance measures for all Assessment Centres (to minimise compliance burden on Assessment Centres)
• that ‘burdensome’ measures should only be imposed on those Assessment Centres with complaints or accountability issues
• observer visit reports need modification so that there is a more rapid feedback loop to Assessment Centres on the outcomes of an observation
• assessment tools need to establish clear criteria for examiners to make consistent examination decisions
• to include ‘annotated’ examples in assessment tools
• to develop and implement a moderation process to ensure consistency of examiner decisions across Assessment Centres.