4 Tips for Internal Quality Assurers

You may be thinking of taking your next step into the role of an Internal Quality Assurer (IQA) by completing an IQA Qualification. This is an exciting step in your career where you get to mould and uphold the quality of delivery in your centre. This ultimately means improving learner experiences and outcomes.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Winston Churchill (or Spiderman) NB they are not one and the same!

For too many years, vocational qualifications have been the “poor relation” to academic routes, but in fact, with high standards being set through internal and external quality assurance, staff development and an investment in good quality resources, there is no reason why vocational education can’t lead the way.

When training new Internal Quality Assurers we always try to communicate 4 important messages:

1. Support, Don’t Police

One of the roles of an IQA is to support assessors to help them improve the quality of delivery with their learners; to ensure that learners are making good progress and achieving the right level of knowledge, skills and competence.

You are not there to try and catch your assessors out. You are there to provide support and development for them, so they can grow in their roles.

Some IQA’s can come across as “bossy” in their reports. This is why we encourage all new IQAs to give verbal feedback of their IQA activity to their assessors, so that thy can hear the tone in which the report was written, they can explain their reasoning and have a discussion with the assessor.

When providing feedback after an observation, we encourage our trainee IQAs to ask “How do you think that went?” so that the assessor has an opportunity to reflect, and identify what has gone well, and what could have been better.

When you are carrying out your IQA activity, you may notice particular trends – common mistakes being made by assessors. Pick these up at standardisation meetings, or source professional development activities for them. Find out the root cause of the issue, ensure they know how they can develop and agree a way forward with them , so that you can see improvements being made.

There may be testing time when the assessor isn’t making improvements. Be sure to have conversations with the assessor, and raise with their line manager if appropriate.   

2. Have a plan (but be adaptable)

You will have carried out a risk assessment on your assessor to identify how much IQA sampling is required . Your sample strategy will depend on a range of factors including your assessor’s qualifications and experience; how long they have assessed for you; whether they are responsive to feedback and take part in standardisation meetings and how new the qualification is itself.

Plan out what you are going to sample, ensuring you have a good range of units, assessment methods, following the CAMERA principle:

• Candidates/Learners
• Assessors
• Methods of assessment
• Evidence
• Records
• Assessment sites

Use a range of IQA activity – not just portfolio sampling, but live observations and learner questionnaires. These last two forms of IQA activity will often tell you the most about the quality of delivery and your learner’s experiences.

They require a bit more planning- but you will get to see practice for yourself, and hear “from the horse’s mouth” , the learner experience,  which is invaluable.

Also, ensure your IQA activity takes place throughout the learning programme. Whatever you do, don’t just leave it until the end!

At the start – carry out IQA within 8-12 weeks of the programme starting to check that the learner has had a suitable induction and has been recruited onto the programme properly. Does the learner know what they are doing? Has initial planning been completed well? Has the combination of units been chosen correctly and are of the right credit value? Have they been registered?

In the middle – are they making good progress? Are they where they should be for that point of the programme? Is good constructive feedback being given? Is planning detailed? Are learners being supported? Are learners submitting their work at the right level?

And of course, at the end – are they being told they have achieved? Have all criteria been met? Is learner work authenticated?

Importantly – ensure your close the loop with your feedback. Check assessors have acted upon any recommendations.

Be flexible – All the best laid plans don’t always work, therefore, be adaptable and change your plan, but don’t forget to record any changes in your tracking forms and to keep an audit trail of your activity. Your EQA will look at this.

3. Work with others to find a standardised approach

If you’re new to IQA, sometimes it is hard to find your standard, so try and plan to carry out your IQA with another person, so you can ask questions and bounce off one another. Whether this is done remotely or in person, it’s having the open forum when sampling that is important.

You may find yourselves finding similar issues, so you will be able to plan in appropriate staff training or development as part of the IQA process.

It’s also good practice to include assessors – get them involved in creating new resources and sharing their good practice with other assessors at standardisation meetings. Assessing can sometimes be a lonely job – out on the road, or working from home, so make sure they feel included in decision making and part of the wider team.

4. Check authenticity of learner work

Unfortunately, there are a minority of situations where learners may not complete work themselves, With technology, it is easy to search the internet, copy and paste, or use other learner’s work and pass it off as their own. There are useful tools you can use to check for plagiarism, we use http://www.neilstoolbox.com/plagiarism-tester/index.htm.

Support assessors to help them recognise when plagiarism has taken place, and how to address this with their learners. It can be an awkward conversation, but in our experience, most learners respond well and resubmit their work, in their own words or with the relevant referencing.

Steps to take as an IQA:

• Identify plagiarism with the assessor – explain how you identified it – through a different tone in the learner’s work, or recognising it from other text
• Contact the learner to explain that it has been identified that parts of their work have not been written in their own words. Explain to them what plagiarism is. Explain how they can quote and reference their work, or resubmit in their own words.
• Maybe the learner is struggling  to write in their own words– so offer an alternative assessment method e.g. verbal questioning, or further reading and resources to help them develop their knowledge.
• Record steps taken in the IQA report.

Overall, we have lots of our trainee IQAs who will say that their own assessment has actually improved as a result of becoming an IQA as they are looking at it from a different point of view. It is a lovely job that holds learners best interests at heart, so if you want to take the next step on the ladder, please get in touch with us.

Other Resources

For a detailed guide to Internal Quality Assurance, this City and Guilds Guide is really useful.