State sector agencies use registered workplace assessors - from their agency or an external agency - to assess learners against unit standards from the National Qualifications Framework.

The workplace assessment process follows six broad stages.

1. Learners work out the unit standards they want to be assessed against (often with help from their manager and Learning State).

2. You meet with the learner before the assessment (the pre-assessment meeting) to:

• discuss where, when, and how the assessment will take place
• work out what the learner does in their job that will show they meet the unit standard's requirements
• work out the evidence the learner needs to gather to show they meet the unit standard's requirements.

3. You and the learner gather evidence.

4. You assess the learner on or off the job.

5. You tell the learner whether they have met the standard and report results to Learning State.

6. We lodge the learner's result with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, so it can send the learner an updated Record of Learning once a year showing the standards they have achieved.

What is evidence?

Evidence for workplace assessment can take several forms. The unit standard will specify exactly what's required. The assessment guide for the standard explains the suitable evidence for each unit standard.

How is evidence collected?

You and the learner collect evidence in four main ways.

• You (or another observer) watch the learner complete a specified task.
• The learner collects written examples of their work for you to judge.
• You have a face-to-face interview with the learner or they write responses to written questions.
• The learner's manager gives you a reference about the learner's skills and experience.

What do I do with the evidence?

You weigh up the evidence collected against the unit standard's requirements by:

• checking the evidence is the learner's own work (the authenticity principle)
• checking the evidence matches the requirements of the standard for which you are assessing the learner (the validity principle)
• assessing the learner against the same criteria for the same standard that other learners are assessed against (the fairness principle)
• checking the learner has collected enough evidence for you to judge their work (the sufficiency principle)
• checking that the evidence is less than 2 years old (the currency principle).

After you have reviewed the evidence, you may ask the learner for more information or for their manager or someone they work with to confirm what the learner does in their job.