What is the Role of an IQA?

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An IQA – an Internal Quality Assurer (also known as an Internal Verifier) – is an important part of the learning and assessment process. It’s their responsibility to make sure everything from classroom study to final examinations runs smoothly and to a high standard. Their work also ensures assessment is consistent, fair and accurate for all learners.

With salaries reaching as high as £40k a year, it’s a highly desirable position. But what is the role of an IQA, and is becoming an IQA for you?

What Is An IQA?

An IQA carries out a very important part of the learning and assessment process. They are the ones who are responsible for making sure operations run smoothly. This involves everything from the learning and studying the student undertakes; all the way through to the final examination (and everything in between!). An IQA helps with the standardisation process, ensuring that assessments carried out are fair and consistent between learners.

The ‘Internal’ aspect of an IQA means that Quality Assurance is being taken place within the training centre itself, by an internal member of staff. The role of an IQA often falls with the Supervisor or Manager within a training centre. As long as they aren’t quality-assuring their own assessment decisions, an IQA can also still work as an Assessor and perform both roles.

Are you eligible to be an IQA?

At Brooks and Kirk, we require our Trainee IQAs to be Qualified Assessors. This is for your own benefit, as you’ll struggle to succeed in the role and find a position as an IQA if you’re not qualified as an assessor first.

That’s because an Internal Quality Assurer basically assesses the assessor. How can they do that well if they haven’t been in the assessor’s shoes? Essentially, assessors become your learners. That means previous assessors make perfect IQAs.

Responsibilities of An IQA

The day-to-day duties of an IQA will vary, particularly if they are continuing to assess at the same time. Here are some of the general things that an IQA will be responsible for:

  • Checking that Assessors are fully qualified within their roles
  • Planning and preparing activities to allow for the monitoring of assessments
  • Ensuring the standardisation of assessment practices (working alongside Assessors, trainers and employers)
  • Observing both trainer and Assessor performance & providing constructive feedback
  • Sampling assessment records and decisions / grades given
  • Meeting with the learners themselves
  • Identifying and facilitating best practices within the organisation

Having an IQA within an organisation is very important when it comes to assessments, and making sure that best practices are adhered to. It is quite common that when issues are discovered with the delivery of a qualification, this can be traced back to a lack of quality assurance within the organisation.

Requirements For The Role of an IQA

Depending on the level of responsibility you will be required to have within your IQA role, there are three different types of IQA qualifications available:

This is the most basic IQA qualification, and will not qualify you to internally quality assure assessment. It will provide you with the theory and knowledge behind internal quality assurance, and is therefore a great CPD course.

This qualification is the equivalent to the old Internal Verifiers qualification. It will give you the necessary skills to provide quality assurance of assessments and assessment decisions. You won’t be able to be the centre lead IQA with this qualification though.

This is the most highly regarded IQA qualification, and is often referred to as the Lead IQA qualification. It will not only give you the skills to quality assure qualifications, but also manage other IQAs. You will even be able to create IQA policies and procedures within the training organisation.

Which characteristics make a good IQA?

If you’re considering becoming an IQA, you should consider whether your personal characteristics suit the role.

An IQA needs to:

  • Be assertive – to identify poor practice and make sure it’s improved
  • Have great attention to detail – to notice inconsistencies and failure to adhere to set regulations and criteria
  • Be personable – to work with learners and assessors
  • Be unbiased – to show no favouritism or discrimination towards any learner or assessor
  • and be ready to step back from their learners – an IQA has less contact with vocational learners; for some people, this is the part of their current job they enjoy most.

As an IQA, you won’t always be giving praise. Part of the role is being able to point out problems with the assessment process and work with assessors to make the necessary improvements. You have to be confident in doing this to succeed as an IQA.

Internal Quality Assurer VS Quality Manager

Becoming an Internal Quality Assurer

It is the responsibility of an Internal Quality Assurer (IQA) to ensure that assessment is consistent and fair across all learners. There are a few other key roles you would be required to carry out as an IQA:

  1. Providing support to both newly qualified and experienced Assessors.
  2. Developing and implementing policies and procedures for the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment.
  3. Planning and managing External Quality Assurer visits.

For this, you will need The Level 4 Award in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice. This is the equivalent qualification to the old Internal Verifiers qualification.

This qualification is perfect if you are wanting to qualify as an Internal Quality Assurer and gain all the skills required to provide quality assurance of assessments. You would not be able to be the centre lead or quality nominee with this qualification though.

Becoming a Quality Manager

This is often referred to as the Lead IQA, and involves the management of other IQAs. If you are looking to become a Lead IQA, you will need to complete the Level 4 Certificate in Leading the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice. This will allow you to both lead and manage the whole quality assurance process. It also equips you with the skills to carry out the following:

  1. Manage the Internal Quality Assurance process for a training centre.
  2. Manage other Internal Quality Assurers.
  3. Develop and write Internal Quality Assurance policies and procedures.
  4. Manage EQA visits.

So as you can see, the role of a Quality Manager is very similar to that of an IQA; they just have the experience and knowledge to manage other IQAs as well. With the quality control process, inspections and sampling are carried out in order to verify the correctness and quality of the assessments.

Benefits of Becoming An IQA

So now that we have explained in detail the role of an IQA and the qualifications you need in order to become one, let’s have a quick look at some of the benefits of becoming an IQA.
Let’s start with the most important one first – financial gain! On average, IQAs earn in the region of £30,000 per year. This is a step up for experienced Assessors, as becoming an IQA will add extra value to the company. It removes the need for organisations to hire a freelance IQA to carry out their quality assurance, as one of their employees can carry out the work instead.

Continued Professional Development (CPD) is another reason to become an IQA. As an Assessor you will already be aware of the importance of keeping your CPD record up to date, and taking an IQA qualification will help with this. Even if you don’t want to become a lead IQA, even just completing the knowledge qualification will help you to become a better Assessor within your current role.

Find out more about the IQA qualifications we have available at Brooks and Kirk.

We hope this has helped to give you more information about the role of an IQA, but if you would like to discuss any of this in further detail please feel free to call us on 01205 805155 or email training@brooksandkirk.ac.uk.