Quality assurance – internal (IQA)

Internal
quality assurance (IQA) seeks to ensure that assessment activities have been conducted in a consistent, safe and fair manner. A system must be in place to monitor all aspects of teaching, learning and assessment from when a learner commences to when they
finish. It can also take place prior to the learner commencing i.e. monitoring
the application and interview process, to after they have left i.e. following
up on progression routes. IQA should not just take place at the end of a programme or when a learner completes – this is bad practice. An internal quality assurer’s role is also to support staff and arrange for further training and development if necessary.

Internal
quality assurers are often supervisors or managers and are naturally
responsible for staff, systems and procedures. Some are still working as
assessors and performing both roles for the subject. That’s absolutely fine as long as they
don’t IQA their own assessment decisions, as that would be a conflict of
interest. Some smaller organisations might only have one assessor and one
internal quality assurer, which again is fine providing they remain fully
objective when carrying out their role. Some small teams, i.e. one assessor and
one internal quality assurer can swap roles and IQA each other’s assessment
decisions. Again, it’s not a problem unless the awarding organisation deems it
is. It could be considered a good way of standardising practice, as they will
be monitoring each other regularly to ensure consistency. You can work towards
a qualification in
IQA if you wish or take an online module as continuing professional development.

Scroll down the page to access
downloadable resources and templates for IQAs.

If you are working towards an IQA qualification, guidance for completing the
units can be found by scrolling down this page until you see the heading Internal Quality
Assurance. 

If you teach and/or assess the qualification, support materials are
available here and online modules here.