- Home
- Employers
- Assessors and Verifiers
- Assessors
Assessors
Our Academic Integrity Team monitors the quality of assessment across the primary industry sectors we serve.
Our Academic Integrity Team ensures:
- assessment materials and assessor practices are fair, valid, and consistent
- Learners meet the national industry standard.
Assessment involves the collection and recording of evidence that shows a learner’s competence against the unit standards they’re trying to achieve. Assessors collect this evidence by:
- observing normal day-to-day work
- viewing the organisation's records
- viewing photos
- getting confirmation from a supervisor or manager who is acting as a verifier.
- checking questions answered by the learner, and
- talking to the learner, the verifier, or both.
Our Assessment Practice Checklist and Best Practice Guidebook have more information about assessment.
Roles
Assessors and verifiers play a key role in supporting learners throughout the training and assessment process in primary industries, but each has a different role in the learner’s journey.
Assessor’s role
Assessors review all the evidence from the learner and the verifier and decide whether the learner has the competency to meet the standard. Evidence typically includes the learners' answers to questions, workplace documents, and verification.
To be an assessor, you must hold a relevant qualification in the field of study you’re assessing or have equivalent industry knowledge and experience.
Assessors must officially register with us. We’ll give you a 'scope' to assess learner results and report them to us.
Assessors must meet several obligations, including the following:
- Assess at least once every 18 months to remain active
- Report results to us within 60 days of collecting them
- Keep learner assessments for 2 years and submit samples for moderation when requested
Read the full obligations and criteria for assessors [PDF, 63KB]
Verifier’s role
Verifiers confirm that learners can consistently perform specific tasks to meet the required standard. They give evidence to assessors and help assessors decide whether learners meet the standard.
Verifiers can observe learners when assessors are not available. Verifiers are not registered and do not judge learners’ competency. One person can be both a verifier and an assessor.
Talk to your Training Advisor about becoming an assessor or a verifier
If you want to become an assessor or verifier, contact your Training Advisor. They’ll explain what you need to do next.
Your organisation must have a training agreement with us and have current learners who will need assessing
To become an assessor, you must hold Unit Standard 4098 or be actively working towards gaining that standard.
Learners have the right to appeal
Learners can formally appeal an assessment decision if they believe it’s unfair. Assessors must use a totally transparent assessment process which provides a trail of evidence to support their decisions.
How appeals work
- The learner must appeal to us in writing within 30 days of the assessment taking place.
- Our Academic Integrity Team overseas a formal review of the appeal.
- We’ll tell the learner and assessor the result of the appeal within 15 days of receiving it.
Some unit standards need peer reviews
Some NZQA ‘owned’ unit standards are quality assured differently to the others and must go through a peer review process. This is needed to give us confidence in meeting compliance requirements with NZQA currently and in the future with the Workforce Development Councils. (WDC’s)
NZQA owned unit standards include communications and interpersonal skills units such as "9680 – Communicate within a specified organisational context", or "11101 – Collaborate within a team which has an objective".
See a list of NZQA unit standards in Primary ITO programmes [PDF, 263KB]
If a workplace assessor assesses one of these standards, the peer reviewer must check the first three assessments of that standard before the assessor can reports results.
If you’re new to assessing NZQA Unit Standards, we’ve created a guide to help you gather the evidence you need to meet the national standard.
Read the NZQA Standards Assessor Tips Guide [PDF, 509KB]
How peer reviews work
If your assessment needs a peer review, email it to peerreviewer@primaryito.ac.nz. Once the peer reviewer receives your assessment, you’ll get a report with the result of the review within 5 working days.
If your assessment meets the requirements of the unit standard, you can report the result of the assessment to us as normal.
If the peer reviewer feels your assessment needs more evidence, their report will show where you need to include that evidence. You then need to collect that evidence and re-submit it to the peer reviewer.
Once you pass three consecutive peer reviews for a particular unit standard, that unit will be added to your assessor scope and you do not need to submit any more assessments for that unit to peer review.
Moderation
We moderate assessments for fairness and consistency.
Moderation is the quality assurance process of monitoring and evaluating assessment documentation and assessor decisions to ensure that standards are applied validly and consistently to all learners.
If you’re an assessor, moderators will evaluate your documentation and decisions to ensure that:
- your assessments are consistent with the national standard
- your assessments are fair and valid and do not disadvantage the learner
- your judgments about learner performance are consistent with one another and those of other assessors.
Moderation gives you valuable feedback on your assessment practices so you can improve them where needed.
What we moderate
We moderate assessment tools before you use them
In a pre-assessment moderation, we check the quality of assessment tools before you use them. Moderators make sure the assessment asks the right questions in the right way, so it collects the right amount of evidence of the learner’s competence against the unit standard.
We moderate the decisions and judgements you make in an assessment
In a post-assessment moderation, we check your assessor judgement for fairness and consistency. Moderators make sure learners have met the standard and that your decisions are consistent with national standards, your other assessments, and assessments of other assessors. We conduct post-assessment moderations in an annual cycle.
How we moderate
We moderate in four different ways
The table below shows the different ways we moderate and how they work.
| Type | How we get the assessment | How we moderate |
| Postal moderation | Assessors or training providers send assessment samples to our Academic Integrity Team on request. | We’ll send the samples to a contracted moderator for review. |
| Panel moderation | Assessors or training providers send assessment samples to our Academic Integrity Team on request. | A panel of moderators and Primary ITO staff review the samples. |
| Peer moderation | Assessors or training providers send assessment samples to our Academic Integrity Team on request. | A group of moderators, Primary ITO staff, and assessors will review the samples. |
| Moderation visits | Moderators and Primary ITO staff will visit the training provider or workplace when assessments are being conducted | The visiting group will observe the assessor(s) as they conduct assessments. |
We moderate different sectors at different times of the year
When we moderate your learner assessments, will depend on what primary industries sector you’re in.
Go to our 2022 moderation calendar [PDF, 143KB] to find out when your sector will be moderated.
We normally ask for moderation samples between February and November. We expect you to take part in moderation and submit your learner assessments within 15 days of us asking.
You must keep all assessments for 2 years
As an assessor, you must keep all your learner assessment workbooks or evidence portfolios (EPs) for 2 years. This includes keeping all supporting evidence you used to make your decision, such as work records, logbooks, or photographs.
Only let your learners keep their assessments if you’re also keeping a scanned copy.
Securely store your assessments at your workplace and make sure they’re easy to find if we ask for them.
Once you’ve kept the assessment for 2 years, return it to the learner or securely dispose of it, depending on the learner’s wishes.
You have the right to appeal moderation
If you disagree with a moderation decision, contact our Academic Integrity Team first – we'll do everything we can to resolve your complaint.
Email: academic.integrity@primaryito.ac.nz
If you’re not satisfied with the result, you can lodge a formal appeal by completing a Moderation Appeal form [PDF, 1.63MB].
Professional development
We have workshops webinars, videos, and other resources for assessors.
Workshops and webinars
Once we’ve confirmed our upcoming schedule, we’ll post it on this page and include it in our newsletter.
Professional Development Webinars 2021
Session 1: Supporting Māori learners, verification & evidence
Session 2: Te Ako Tiketike Model, learning styles & retention and assessment types
Session 3: Pork and Poultry Assessor Webinar (July 2021)
Professional Development Webinars 2020
Topic 3: Moderation & Maori Learners
Professional Development Session for Schools
Videos for assessors
A series of short videos aimed to provide you with information, tips, and tricks around assessing in the workplace.
The roles of assessors and verifiers
What is assessment evidence and what is not enough evidence
The importance of assessor comments
Guides and resources for assessors
We have resources and guides to support you and your learners in the assessment process.
Changes to resources and assessments
This report lists any recent updates or revisions we’ve made to learner resources and assessments.
Read the 2021 Resource and Assessment Change Report [XLS, 56KB]
Adult literacy and numeracy resources
We’ve created resources to support learners or staff with literacy or numeracy challenges.
4098 Assessor Training
To become a Primary ITO assessor, you must either have achieved Unit Standard 4098 – "Use standards to assess candidate performance" OR be actively working towards gaining Unit Standard 4098.
To help you understand your responsibilities as a registered assessor and improve the quality of your assessments, we offer two options for 4098 training courses.
Primary ITO / Wintec (Tutor led) 1 Day (theory only) 4098
This course includes two practical assessments that meet the full requirements of the 4098 unit standard. We hold this course regionally, but we need a minimum number of participants to go ahead.
Read our 4098 course flyer [PDF, 834KB].
This course costs $300, including GST. The fees-free scheme does not apply to this course.
If you’re interested, contact your regional Primary ITO Training Adviser to get your local schedule and to enrol.
Primary ITO online 4098 course
Our online courses run from January to October. They are self-paced 8-week courses guided by an online tutor. You’ll need to complete practical assessments in your workplace to meet the full requirements of this unit standard.
Our online courses are primarily for people wishing to become assessors in the Agriculture and Horticulture sectors. If you do not work in these sectors, contact your relevant Industry Training Organisation (ITO) – they’ll be able to help.
Read our 4098 online course flyer [PDF, 738KB].
This course costs $300, including GST. The fees-free scheme does not apply to this course.
2022 dates for online 4098 courses:
- 21 Feb – 22 Apr
- 21 Mar – 20 May
- 19 Apr – 17 June
- 23 May – 22 July
Enrol for our online course [PDF, 166KB]
If you have any questions about our online course, email academic.integrity@primaryito.ac.nz.
Newsletter for assessors
We send our newsletter to assessors each quarter. The newsletter highlights common assessment issues, promotes good practices, and keeps assessors posted of any upcoming moderation.
We store each issue here for reference throughout the year.