In a workshop delivered on Wednesday 11 October, Muka Tangata shared findings and led a discussion on ways to improve moderation results with providers delivering food and fibre unit standards. 

Vehicle and Machinery programmes and standards detail high physical risk activities that are used commonly across the Agriculture and Horticulture industries. Vehicles include light utility vehicles, quad bikes, all-terrain vehicles, tractors and motorbikes.  

Providers delivering these standards have, as a sub-sector, struggled to meet moderation verification rates (compared to other Agriculture and Horticulture industries) over the last few years. Muka Tangata have made this a moderation focus area with nine site visits being carried out over the last two years as well as significant amounts of desk-based moderation. As we were seeing the same issues across a number of providers, we decided to facilitate an online workshop specifically for providers delivering these programmes and unit standards. 

Kaimahi joined online from EIT | Te Pūkenga , Primary ITO | Te Pūkenga, UCOL | Te Pūkenga, Toi Ohomai | Te Pūkenga, National Trade Academy, Vertical HorizonsNZ, Active Training Centre, Axiom and others. The majority of attendees were from quality assurance or management roles, with some tutors. 

During the workshop, participants discussed their approaches to managing these different performance criteria found in multiple unit standards. Participants also shared ideas and highlighted best practices.  

One of the central topics that arose in the discussions was the collection of evidence that broadly applies to practical-based tasks where assessors collect further evidence to validate and support the tasks associated with the check box.  

Muka Tangata stressed the need for sufficient evidence in assessments, which might include comments from tutors explaining their observations, videos or images showing the authenticity of the event, and learner-driven evidence in the form of questions, information capture, logbooks, and reflections. Comprehensive evidence and judgment statements that clearly defined competency were also emphasised. 

Key insights from the workshop are:  

• A learner can be competent against the standard, but the evidence may not be present.   
• Both tutor-driven evidence, for example, assessor comments and observations, and learner-driven work log evidence (learner diary or work logbook) have their strengths and weaknesses. The key is to be learner-focused and adjust the assessment required to meet the needs of the learner. 
• Pre-moderation will eliminate many of the errors made by assessors.   

Attendees left the workshop with a clear understanding of the evidence requirements set by Muka Tangata before accepting a moderation sample and how they can produce that evidence.  

Feedback from the participants was very positive, saying that they found the information and insights shared by Muka Tangata to be invaluable in enhancing their assessment practices.