The Ministry and NZQA are working through the advice contained in the 2022 evaluation reports.

Summary of actions we’re taking to address key themes:

Evaluation shows there’s a good correlation between using the online learning and assessment tool – e-asTTle – as a readiness indicator and assessment results for literacy and numeracy.

This means that when ākonga are identified as being ready for assessment they are more likely to achieve. The evaluation suggests that strengthening understanding of readiness indicators would support teachers to make decisions about the best time to assess ākonga. Understanding readiness can also help to inform teaching and learning approaches for individual ākonga.

We are providing clearer information about readiness and will continue to share this with schools and kura engaging in the assessments in 2023. This will also be a focus of our regional teams working directly with schools and kura.

Read more: Determining ākonga readiness

We acknowledge the e-asTTle items for te reo matatini me te pāngarau are not fit for purpose – other readiness tools, or teaching and learning resources such as Te Marautanga o Aotearoa and He Manu Tuhituhi can continue to be used for those standards.

Digital assessment offers advantages because it enables technology-enhanced accessibility tools to be used by ākonga who need them. It also enables results to be returned to kaiako and ākonga more quickly than paper-based assessment. It is important that these advantages are balanced with barriers that exist. The evaluations told us there are barriers created by limited access to digital devices and that some ākonga prefer paper-based assessments.

During 2023, any school or kura concerned about managing external digital assessment can call for direct advice and support from the NZQA team supporting the transition year, including NZQA School Relationship Managers. This will include consideration of paper-based assessment where necessary.

At the same time, NZQA is carrying out work to understand the key barriers and opportunities within schools in implementing digital assessment. This work will continue to influence how digital assessment is rolled out.

The Common Assessment Activities are designed using an inclusive lens, which is applied across the assessment platform, and the assessment conditions. This means that items are designed to be relevant to young people, the assessment platform is user-friendly, and the delivery of the assessment is flexible.

In addition, the process for Special Assessment Conditions (SAC) has been designed to remove barriers. This means schools and kura are only required to notify NZQA of the use of SACs, which is a move away from a current approach of seeking approval.

The Evaluation Report reflects there are still areas for improvement for the technology platform used – particularly regarding scrolling – and some schools found the SAC settings difficult to understand.

NZQA are working on enhancements to the Assessment Master Platform and the feedback from the pilot will feed into improvements that will be implemented. This will include a further trial of text to speech technology for any school or kura that wishes to participate. As well as a smaller scope trial of the use of other assistive technologies in some schools. The SAC settings for 2023 have been published earlier than last year, and NZQA are focused on communicating these clearly.

Creating inclusive assessments is a high priority and is something that continues to be a focus for both the Ministry and NZQA. Since pilots were completed, NZQA has strengthened work to ensure a range of critical perspectives are involved in the development of assessments. This helps to ensure they are accessible for all learners. This will continue in 2023 and beyond.

As part of NZQA’s assessment development processes, new frameworks have been incorporated into the assessment design process for 2023 to ensure that assessments are designed to be culturally inclusive. Additional experts are being brought on to support the design process.

This means that contexts for questions in the assessments will be relevant to learners from a range of backgrounds, with a specific focus on Māori and Pacific cultural contexts. Questions are also designed so that even if a context is unfamiliar to a student, the underlying skill being assessed is clear. For example, there may be a small number of students for whom reading a bus timetable is an unfamiliar exercise. In this scenario, the underlying skill is reading a table.

In 2022, students did not receive their individual assessment papers back after the assessment.

We encourage the use of Curriculum Progress and Assessment Tools to understand where students are at in terms of their literacy and numeracy skills.

However, we have heard from pilot participants that some form of individualised feedback would support further teaching and learning by showing what areas students should focus on in the future.

In 2023, NZQA will trial a process where some ākonga receive individual feedback on the assessment activity, including how they have achieved against each outcome of the standard.

NZQA will use the June 2023 assessment as the opportunity to build a model for providing feedback against achievement levels in the five new standards.

The focus of resources provided by the Ministry is on teaching and learning materials. Introduction of the co-requisite is a key opportunity in shifting practice to support literacy, numeracy, te reo matatini and pāngarau as important skills across the curricula.

While making past papers available can support the shift in practice, it is important that these are used as a resource in the wider context of teaching and learning.

The 2021 and June 2022 Common Assessment Activities are currently available on NCEA.Education and unredacted versions can be accessed through teacher’s logins. Following feedback from the evaluation, the September 2022 paper will also be published during 2023.

To support the use of past papers as teaching and learning resources, we have also published examples and guidance that show linkages between the 2022 June paper and teaching and learning objectives. This can be found in the Literacy and Numeracy Planning document on this page: Resources to Support Literacy and Numeracy | Te Reo Matatini me te Pāngarau

The assessments have been designed to reflect level 4/5 of The New Zealand Curriculum.

Evaluation Report Two includes psychometric analysis carried out by NZCER for the Literacy, Numeracy and Pangarau assessments which shows that the assessments are performing well statistically against the outcomes of the standards.

The evaluation has shown us that there is a relationship between e-asTTle scores and achievement in the Reading, Writing, and Numeracy assessments. This means the assessments of the levels of literacy and numeracy that we would expect.

The pilot process has also shown where there may be areas for some improvements in the standards and assessments so that they can – as accurately as possible – reflect the skills and competencies of Level 4/5. The Ministry and NZQA are working together on some refinements to the standards as a result.

During the 2021 small-scale pilot of the NCEA co-requisite standards, several English-medium providers approached the Ministry about the possibility of using a portfolio to assess the literacy and numeracy standards.

The Ministry has explored using portfolio-based assessment as a ‘special assessment condition’ (SAC) or ‘alternative pathway’ for students who are otherwise eligible for SAC. This would be a tightly regulated option for a very small number of students with unique and complex needs. We have commissioned a literature review of portfolio-based assessment from a team of assessment and education experts at Massey University to support final decision-making on the availability of portfolio assessments to students completing the literacy and numeracy co-requisite unit standards.

Based on the findings in this report and the Ministry’s and NZQA’s own prior analysis of the risks and benefits of portfolios, both agencies have agreed not to implement this form of assessment for the literacy and numeracy co-requisite unit standards.

[ File Resource ]

• Title: Assessment by portfolio - January 2023
• Description: Assessment by portfolio - achievement standards and new Te Reo Matatini me te Pāngarau | Literacy & Numeracy co-requisite
• File URL: https://ncea-live-3-storagestack-53q-assetstorages3bucket-2o21xte0r81u.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2023-10/Assessment%20by%20Portfolio%20-%20January%202023.pdf?VersionId=BciLBToPjB5KDlGBYRnJOn8i9rENg073
• File Extension: pdf
• File Size: 760KB