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This paper is a summary of the author's Master of Education Thesis, based on a research project that examined the support factors provided to baker apprentices towards the completion of their National Certificates. The study was initiated in response to a decline in formal apprenticeship completion rates. A questionnaire and interviews were used to gather data. The study indicates that a variety of support factors are provided to apprentices, including external and personal motivation factors. Self-motivation and personal goals contribute towards an apprentice's success.

This paper investigates the effectiveness of workplace assessment practices for New Zealand's National Qualifications Framework (NQF). The author focuses on selected findings from a case study within the New Zealand Ambulance Service, which draws data from interviews with six workplace assessors and eight employees from the Wellington Free Ambulance Service. The author discusses the NQF's use of competency based training, and the effect this has on assessment. Various forms of evidence on which assessors base their decisions are investigated, including direct evidence, valid evidence and sufficient evidence. The balance between holistic and atomistic approaches to assessment is discussed. Candidates focus on holistic outcomes while assessors tend to focus on individual assessment standards. Data from the interviews also indicates the possible impact of relationships between assessors and candidates on assessment outcomes. Models for relationships include positive closeness and negative closeness. The author suggests that non-intrusive assessment of ambulance workplace practices allows an integration of individual competencies and holistic work, and that the positive closeness model of relationships allows candidates to actively participate in the assessment process.