OVERVIEW
Internal Quality Assurance, usually shortened to IQA, is the process that keeps assessment in a training centre accurate, fair and consistent. Wherever learners are assessed against a qualification — an apprenticeship, an NVQ, a diploma or a competence-based award — someone has to make sure that the decisions assessors reach are sound, that different assessors are judging to the same standard, and that every learner is treated equally. That is the job of the internal quality assurer. IQA protects learners, protects the credibility of the qualification and protects the centre’s relationship with its awarding organisation, so it sits at the heart of a well- run training provider. At the centre of IQA is sampling. An IQA cannot possibly re-check every piece of evidence and every decision that every assessor makes; there is far too much of it, and doing so would simply duplicate the assessor’s work. Instead the IQA selects a representative sample — a carefully chosen slice of the assessment work — and uses it to form a reliable picture of whether assessment across the centre is being carried out correctly. Choosing that sample well is a skill, and it is guided by a sampling strategy: a documented plan setting out what will be sampled, when, from whom and how much, driven above all by risk. This course explains the purpose of IQA and why sampling rather than total checking is the right approach; how to design a sampling strategy using the widely used CADET model and a sampling plan or matrix; how to rate risk and why sampling across the whole assessment cycle — interim as well as summative — matters so much; the wider monitoring activities that sit alongside sampling, including observing assessment practice, standardisation, learner interviews and supporting assessors; and how to record IQA activity, give developmental feedback and continuously improve the quality system. It is written to be consistent with the TAQA framework and the internal quality assurance requirements that awarding organisations place on centres. It concludes with a 20-question multiple-choice assessment, which you must pass at 80% to earn your CPD certificate.
This is an awareness-level CPD course. It develops your understanding and does not confer assessor or quality-assurer status; it is not a TAQA or CAVA unit or any Ofqual-regulated qualification. It concludes with a 20-question multiple-choice assessment, which you must pass at 80% to earn your certificate.
