Supporting Quality Assurance of Derived Grades - A2023/5

Background

The circular Reaffirming Derived Grade Quality Assurance Processes A2022/11 gave details about NZQA’s expectation that derived grades reported by schools/kura are based on assessment tools and judgements that have been subject to quality assurance checks. These checks provide schools with confidence that reported derived grades for external assessment are valid and credible.

Reaffirming Derived Grade Quality Assurance Processes A2022/11

Support for review of derived grades processes

To support school-based review of derived grade practice, NZQA has made the following reports available to schools/kura through the NZQA login.

Derived grade profile

The Derived grade profile contains an overview of reported derived grades compared to assessed results for previous years, including a breakdown by subject and level. This report will provide schools/kura with the ability to compare derived grades with assessed results over a four-year period.

Derived grade subject outlier(s)

An outlier report for a subject will be generated where the pattern of derived grades compared with assessed results for the subject is significantly different from the general pattern observed for that subject at schools/kura in the same decile band.

Outliers suggest further inquiry should be undertaken to understand the pattern and identify and address concerns. Note that there must be at least 15 students for an outlier report to be generated. Smaller schools/subjects need to be aware that they may have some areas with a pattern of concern to be investigated, even when an outlier report is unavailable.

Support the Derived Grades for Unexpected Events Report

These reports support the existing Derived Grades for Unexpected Events Report, which lists the external entries for achievement standards and the associated derived grades submitted in your latest datafile. This report should be used during the year to check for the accuracy and completeness of the derived grades that have been reported to NZQA. These are the grades that NZQA will use in the case of an event that requires us to apply derived grades at scale.

NZQA will continue to monitor the processes schools/kura use to quality assure derived grades through Managing National Assessment reviews and Derived Grade audits.