About this report
The following report gives feedback to assist assessors with general issues and trends that have been identified during external moderation of the internally assessed standards in 2023. It also provides further insights from moderation material viewed throughout the year and outlines the Assessor Support available for Health.
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Insights
91236: Evaluate factors that influence people's ability to manage change
This standard requires students to respond to a change situation presented as a scenario or gather their own data by interviewing a person who has experienced change. The scenario should allow opportunity to draw out risk and protective factors at personal, interpersonal and societal levels. If an interview is used, the evaluation needs to focus on the standard’s requirements, rather than solely recount the story of change.
A combination of personal, interpersonal and societal strategies must be recommended to maintain the protective factors and/or minimise the risk factors.
Practices that need strengthening:
A clear ‘change situation’ is needed to ensure the requirements of the standard can be met. Grades were changed in moderation where a clear ‘change situation’ was not provided, or where multiple ‘change situations’ were given. Without a specific, clearly stated ‘change situation’, it is difficult for students to understand risk and protective factors relevant to the change. Explanatory Note 4 of the standard provides further information about the nature of the ‘change situation’ needed for an analysis.
Risk and protective factors are personal, interpersonal and societal influences on a person’s ability to manage life’s changes. Risk factors increase the likelihood of difficulties coping with change, while protective factors better enable people to cope with life’s changes. These influences must exist prior to the change situation being experienced.
The standard requires students to explain strategies that will maintain protective factors and/or minimise the risk factors at all levels (personal, interpersonal and societal). The levels at which the proposed strategies aim to address protective and/or risk factors must be clear in the student evidence. To show understanding of level, students' descriptions of personal strategies should be framed in terms of what they involve for the individual, others and the wider community.
Explanations of strategies need to include a clear description of the strategy, the action it involves, and reasons to justify why and how it will help the person to cope with the change situation and be resilient when faced with future changes.
91464: Analyse a contemporary ethical issue in relation to well-being
Analysing a contemporary ethical issue involves explaining the differing and opposing perspectives on the issue and the reasons for these different perspectives, as well as the implications of current related health practices for the well-being of those directly affected by the issue, others associated with those people, and the well-being of people and society.
A contemporary ethical issue is defined as a health-related controversial issue of current public concern where there are contrasting perspectives held by groups of people.
A range of both international and national issues were selected for analysis in 2023, and included the following examples: assisted euthanasia, child immunisation, abortion, transgender people in sport.
Practices that need strengthening:
A contemporary health-related ethical issue must be selected for analysis. Explanatory Note 3 of the standard provides examples of ethical issues that could be considered as possible contexts for an analysis.
Explanations of contrasting perspectives must include at least two groups for each opposing perspective. It is expected that the perspectives be those of major stakeholders/groups, rather than individual people’s points of view. Where contrasting perspectives for individuals rather than groups were solely provided and/or an insufficient number of groups’ perspectives explored, grades were changed in moderation.
If international perspectives (via social media and other digital sources) have informed group perspectives, it should be apparent that these perspectives have informed the debate in the country where the implications of current practice are being examined. If this is not apparent, then selected groups should be localised to the country/place of the current implication’s explanations.
For Excellence, it is expected that students will clearly link perspectives of the selected groups to their ethical foundations. For example, linking the rights approach with the Voluntary Euthanasia Society’s stance on assisted dying.
Implications for well-being need to be considered in relation to current practice in the country being examined. It needs to be clear where groups for and against the ethical issue are based, and where implications for current practice are being considered. Current practice is likely to be determined by laws and/or social mores, and likely to align with one of the perspectives.
The implications on wellbeing should be of current practices associated with the chosen issue, rather than of the issue itself. For example, when analysing the issue of assisted dying, the implications should be of the current law and practice. This could include consideration of ideas such as “if it is now legal in New Zealand, what are the implications of this on the wellbeing of the individual, others and society?”
A critical perspective is needed at all levels of achievement. This could involve identifying and challenging taken-for-granted assumptions, exploring who is advantaged and disadvantaged by aspects of the ethical issue, focusing on the ‘key’ aspects of the issue, and/or making explicit links to the underlying concepts of the learning area.
At all levels of achievement, the analysis of the ethical issue needs to be supported by recent and relevant evidence.
Assessor Support
Online
NZQA’s learning management system (Pūtake) offers 150+ easy to access courses, materials and products. These are designed to support teachers, as assessors, to improve their assessment of NCEA standards.
Online, subject-specific or generic, bite-sized learning modules and short courses are now available to complement the traditional face-to-face workshops that NZQA offers. These online courses can be accessed using your Education Sector Logon.
Subject-specific course/workshops available for Health include:
- 91236: Evaluate factors that influence people's ability to manage change
Online Making Assessor Judgements workshops are also available throughout the year. These workshops are structured to guide teachers to improve their understanding of each grade level by examining several full samples of student work. The following standards are available for enrolment in 2024:
- 91461: Analyse a New Zealand health issue
- 91464: Analyse a contemporary ethical issue in relation to well-being
Feedback from teachers for these workshops indicates that more than 74% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that the content in the module was beneficial:
“Although I was a bit skeptical that this was going to provide me with better understanding of the standard (and marking it), I found I've picked up more certainty about making judgements about the work my students might produce. I'm also more secure about guiding them through the selection of their topic and setting it up so that they are able to complete a successful investigation.”
Exemplars of student evidence for all standards at each level of achievement are available on the NZQA subject page for Health Education.
NZQA will continue to provide generic modules and workshops designed to improve general assessment practice. The following modules and workshops will be available in 2024:
- Assessment Approaches, an online workshop exploring different methods of assessment
- Culturally Responsive Assessment
- Assessment Guidance – Reviewing Your Practice
- Tāku Reo, Tāku Mahi – My voice, My work, a guide to managing authenticity
- Why Less is More, a guide to reducing volumes of student evidence
- Integrated Assessment
- Modes of Assessment
- Alternative Assessment
- Acknowledging Sources
“This was great! I liked that I could choose from different scenarios, see how sources are used and the way the student answered the question.”
“Reassuring and very thorough. Easy to use/follow.”
We will also continue to offer the Transforming Assessment Praxis programme, an online workshop relevant to all subjects which helps assessors learn about re-contextualising assessment resources and collecting evidence in different ways, in order to better meet the needs of students.
Check the NCEA subject pages on the NZQA website regularly, as more online modules, workshops and courses will be added throughout 2024.
Assessor Practice Tool
The Assessor Practice Tool (APT) will be used to support assessors with the new NCEA standards from 2024 onwards. The purpose of the APT is to allow assessors to practice making assessment judgements and immediately receive feedback on their judgements from a moderation panel. The APT will initially have material for some existing Level 3 standards, with moderated samples for the new Level 1 NCEA standard subjects being added as material becomes available. Material for the new Level 2 and Level 3 standards will be added over time, and all material for the old NCEA standards will be archived.
Material is currently available for:
91461: Analyse a New Zealand health issue
91464: Analyse a contemporary ethical issue in relation to well-being
Workshops and presentations
The Best Practice Workshops offered by Assessment and Moderation continue to be viewed by the sector as significantly contributing to improved assessor practice:
“I thought the workshop was very clear and helpful, there were a lot of varied examples of ākonga work discussed and opportunity for participants to discuss and ask questions.”
We offer several options of online workshops and presentations for events to support assessors with the assessment of internally assessed standards. These can be subject-specific, or general assessment support, and tailored to the audience. Virtual presentation slots, online workshops or webinars can be requested to provide targeted support to local, regional or national audiences.