Moderation
What is Moderation?
Moderation is a process of monitoring and evaluating
assessment documentation and decisions to ensure
that standards are applied validly and consistently to all
learners.
Below is the list of CMRs for which Primary ITO is the
Standard Setting Body:
CMR ID
CMRs included Sectors
0033
(Processing)
0123
0022
The Purpose of Moderation
The purpose of moderation is to ensure that:
• Assessments are consistent with the national
standard;
0052
(Growing)
• Assessments are fair, valid and consistent; and
• Assessors are making consistent judgments about
learner performance.
Moderation is intended to ensure that regardless of
where an assessment was carried out for any particular
unit standard, the judgment made on the learner’s
competence was fair, valid and of a reasonably consistent
standard when compared to assessments made
elsewhere.
Moderation exercises provide an ideal opportunity for
providers to obtain structured collegial feedback on
their teaching and assessment material. This should
either confirm that their tools meet industry standards
or will identify where improvements are needed to do so.
Who do we moderate?
All providers with consent to assess scope against any
unit standards for which Primary ITO is the Standard
Setting Body.
The quality management system requirements are
set out in Primary ITO’s Consent and Moderation
Requirement’s (CMR). Staff of providers with consent to
assess scope, are expected to be familiar with our CMRs.
0018
(Animal Care)
0033
0052
0032
0037
0232
0018
0179
0228
Seafood &
Seafood Māori
Dairy & Baking
Yeasts
Meat
Agriculture
Horticulture
Sports Turf
Primary Sector
Equine &
Greyhound Racing
Water (Selected
Domains Only)
Animal Care
Why do we undertake moderation?
Primary ITO must meet the New Zealand Qualifications
Authority’s (NZQA) quality assurance standards which
are outlined in their QA Standard for ITOs document.
Primary ITO demonstrates this to NZQA by:
• Implementing a national external moderation system
in accordance with the moderation information of our
registered CMR.
• Documenting national external moderation activities
and the results of these activities.
• Applying processes to ensure feedback from the
national external moderation activities is used in
review of our unit standards.
• Meeting annual NZQA national external moderation
reporting requirements.
• Regularly evaluating and reviewing its national
external moderation system.
• Periodically evaluating and reviewing the moderation
information to ensure that it meets NZQA registration
criteria and accords with best practice.
www.primaryito.ac.nz • 0800 20 80 20
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Reporting
Primary ITO’s Internal Moderation System includes:
Primary ITO is responsible for evaluating the
effectiveness of its national external moderation system,
and for providing an annual report to NZQA.
• Assessor Moderation – Primary ITO’s Quality Support
team visit a sample of assessors (Primary ITO staff
assessors, farmer trainers, workplace assessors) to
moderate their practical skills, assessment processes
and decisions.
Primary ITO uses a range of methodologies including
satisfaction surveys for industry, learners and consent
to assess providers, informal feedback, review by the
Quality Support team and moderators, and formal
review to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of its
national external moderation system. Improvements are
made on the basis of this evaluation. An annual report is
then provided to NZQA.
Our Responsibilities
The Quality team manages plans and coordinates all
moderation events, reports moderation outcomes,
ensures providers comply with moderation
requirements, and evaluates and reports on the
effectiveness of Primary ITO’s national external
moderation system.
The Quality team including moderators; meet annually
to check, moderate and peer review moderation
activities. Annual feedback is sought from each
moderator on the effectiveness of moderation activities
and suggestions for improvement to the system. This
feedback is then considered in our planning process for
the following year.
We also invite industry representatives with specific
expertise to advise and assist in moderation activities as
required.
The Moderation Components
Moderation has two main components:
1. INTERNAL MODERATION
Is the ‘in house’ process of ensuring consistency with
the national standards, and between assessors and
providers.
2. EXTERNAL MODERATION
This process is run by Primary ITO to ensure national
consistency between providers including public and
private tertiary education providers, industry training
organisations, government training organisations,
private training establishments and schools.
Primary ITO’s National External Moderation System
consists of five main activities. All consent to assess
providers assessing against Primary ITO’s unit standards
are required to participate in these activities.
Clusters
Providers are required to be involved in a local
external moderation system which is best achieved by
participating at Clusters.
Clusters moderate a sample of their theory and practical
assessment materials and decisions, with others who are
involved in assessing against Primary ITO unit standards.
Primary ITO publishes a list of Cluster dates at the start
of each year in the “Focused on Quality” newsletter.
Primary ITO ensures a Quality Support member
facilitates at Clusters to provide advice and support
and to record and report on moderation outcomes.
Primary ITO expects consent to assess providers to
attend and provide assessment material for moderation
Clusters in their region.
Feedback to Primary ITO has indicated that Clusters are
valuable to consent to assess providers as it provides
opportunities to share ideas, seek feedback, network
and maintain currency with industry practice.
Providers will have an internal moderation system
operating to ensure that the quality of their delivery and
assessment judgments are continually improving. This
should include Assessor/Tutor meetings, peer review
and self-review processes.
www.primaryito.ac.nz • 0800 20 80 20
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Provider Moderation
Annual Moderation Report & Assessment Plan
Primary ITO moderators visits a sample of providers
to moderate their practical/theory skills, assessment
processes and decisions.
Providers that have actively assessed against Primary ITO
unit standards in the previous year and plan to assess in
the following year are required to submit a moderation
report and/or assessment plan.
Providers selected for a visit are advised of the visit at the
beginning of each year by letter. A team of moderators,
a pair of moderators, or an individual moderator
will conduct the visit depending on the amount of
assessment being undertaken and the nature of the unit
standards being assessed against.
The intention of the visit is to ensure that moderation
outcomes from Clusters and Moderation Panels
are actioned, and to facilitate the consent to assess
provider’s engagement in Primary ITO’s national external
moderation system. The visit is intended to sample
assessment practices and assessor decisions in relation
to practical unit standards, to provide support and
guidance for training delivery and assessment against
Primary ITO unit standards, and to foster partnership
between us and the consent to assess provider.
Feedback is then provided in a report to the provider,
and any actions to bring about compliance with
moderation requirements are identified.
Moderation Panel Exercises
To ensure national consistency of theory based
assessment the Moderation Panel reviews samples of
assessments, marking schedules and learner scripts.
To facilitate national consistency, the Quality team
requests samples of assessment material and learner
scripts from consent to assess providers for selected
unit standards. A panel of moderators then convenes to
moderate the assessment material received. The list of
unit standards to be sampled by the Moderation Panel
is published at the start of each year in the “Focused on
Quality” newsletter which is emailed to all consent to
assess providers as well as being published on Primary
ITO’s website.
Feedback and a moderation report (where applicable) is
then provided following these exercises to the providers
who were asked to participate. Assessment material
that does not meet the national standard is required to
be resubmitted by a specified date for approval before it
can be used again.
www.primaryito.ac.nz • 0800 20 80 20
These reports are for providers to summarise their
engagement with Primary ITO’s national external
moderation system; it includes attendance at Clusters
and actions taken by the provider to bring their
assessment material and assessor decisions into line
with the national standard following moderation panel
feedback where minor improvements were required
as opposed to resubmission of assessment material,
assessment intention etc.
The information from these reports provides Primary ITO
with an overview of compliance with its requirements
and the basis for reporting to NZQA, and it’s Board.
How much moderation do we undertake?
The expectation of Primary ITO is that all unit standards a
provider is assessing against will have been moderated at
least once over a two to five year time span (depending
on consent to assess scope). It is recommended that
approximately 20% of the unit standards the provider
assesses against that year are externally moderated
one way or another. This means that a provider who
assesses fifty (50) unit standards in any year should aim
to moderate at least ten (10) unit standards during that
year.
Compliance
All providers are expected to comply in the following
three ways:
• By participating in and reporting to Primary ITO, on
their involvement in local external moderation.
• Providing the Quality team with assessment samples
if requested to participate in a Moderation Panel
Exercise.
• Participating in a practical skills moderation exercise if
requested to by Primary ITO.
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Non-Compliance
Pre-Moderation of Assessment Fees
Non-compliance by a provider will result in Primary ITO
initiating a process that may see it withdrawing
support for their continued consent to assess status
or in extreme cases initiating their de-registration as a
provider.
Primary ITO strongly recommends that providers
use our assessment tasks where they are available for
the unit standards they are delivering. If we do not
have assessment tasks available then we are able to
moderate your assessments for you. Our fee for this
service is $120.00 per hour (+ GST). Please send your
assessment(s) for pre-moderation along with a covering
note advising how you would be using it to:
Where non-compliance is identified, the Quality
Manager will specify the non-compliance and the
corrective actions to be taken within what time frame, in
writing to the non-compliant provider.
Statement
Primary ITO recognises that moderation is an ongoing
process and welcomes suggestions on how the current
system can be modified or improved. Primary ITO
wishes to work in partnership with providers to ensure
that support and feedback is available so that quality
standards are maintained across the industries for which
we have responsibility for.
www.primaryito.ac.nz • 0800 20 80 20
Quality team
Primary ITO
P O Box 10-383
The Terrace
Wellington
Alternatively you can email us at
quality@primaryito.ac.nz.
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