Potentially discriminatory extra time exam rules?

[Aleiha]

Just really wanted to sense check this.

DD is at a top ranking University and is entitled to extra time in exams due to having a disability. This is not disputed by the University which has given her 25% extra time. This is also what she had during A levels and GCSEs.

She is studying an essay based subject (history) and has had her first exam today and discovered that the university have extended the four hour exam to five hours. This is fine but they have applied the extra time to all students sitting the exam. This includes those with a disability and those without. The rationale from the university is that those who don't need the extra time won't use it and those who do need it can then use it.

Its a online open book exam (two essays) and so clearly everyone will use the extra time.

Is this a correct application of the rules? My understanding was that the extra time is supposed to alleviate any disadvantage she suffers due to her disability.

@MargaretThursday
24 hour exams-for what subject? Do you mean 24 hours in a straight row or over a few days? Are they measuring endurance or ability?
Only investment bankers work 16-18 hours straight.

A 24 hour exam is an online paper that I would release say at 2pm on Monday with a submission deadline of 2pm on Tuesday. Exam is a bit of a misnomer. It's a timed paper with access to as many resources as you need - books, internet etc.

It's interesting, isn't it? The balance between continuous assessment and exams can have a similar effect, though your daughter and her friend sound like extreme cases!

Surely these are going to have to be stopped as they are so vulnerable to AI use/misuse?

I've only used them a couple of times during COVID. Not a fan. AI is a huge problem.
I much prefer 'old fashioned' exams. I'm also moving more towards presentations and viva type assessments where students may submit a written piece of work but at least 50% of the grade comes from a presentation to a panel of staff or an oral/ viva type defence of an argument. They may have used AI to help with the written element but soon come unstuck if they are unable to discuss the topic for 15 minutes.

I was thinking about that the other day, I had to produce a piece of work and it would have been so easy to cheat and run something through AI and produce something that looked plausible

But it was the sweat that went into drafting and defining it it that meant I was then able to talk confidently about it in meetings

It's going to have to be a combination of proper exams and viva type examinations I think.

It was during covid. The University, as a lot of universities did, had 24 hour exams for all subjects. They were also open book. They normally started at 1pm, and finished at 1pm.
The reasoning behind it I believe was
That everyone was at home so they could choose when they did it over those 24 hours depending on their time zone. And also as they couldn't monitor the timing easily, it meant that they didn't need to worry about people going over time.

I think their original thought was that everyone would do 3 hours, just at a time if their choosing.

Dd does have a huge capacity for concentration when she needs, but she was taking breaks through the time she was working and then crashed as soon as it was done. She doesn't even drink coffee!

She had a day off between each exam too, would have been much harder if back to back.

So whatever you do will suit some people, and not suit others.

This is why we try to use a variety of assessment types across a module, a university year, and across the degree as a whole.

And there is NO expectation at all that the student will spen 24 hours straight doing it! We would generally set a combination of questions and tasks which could be done in 3 hours, but give the student 24 hours so that they can gather materials, refine a draft, and so on.

A student who spends 24 hours straight (or major portion of those hours) has missed the point of the assessment..

But when you have a module with 30 or more students, and that’s not the only module you teach in that term, vivas are almost impossible.

Yep, I’m programme lead, module lead for 4 modules, teach on 10 modules across 3 year groups, personal tutor to over 30 students. Oh and our programme doesn’t finish until the end of July so only six weeks to prep for the new academic year. I can barely mark never mind add a viva for every assignment to my load.

So, third year Maths at Cambridge is a thick exam paper and students can answer as many questions as they can manage. I’ve experienced students with additional time have an absolute advantage over others here, as the additional time was really only relevant for them for essay based exams they’d done at A level, but the support documentation wasn’t sophisticated enough to take into account the style of exams. The issue in one instance was poor handwriting rather than processing speed. The extra time just gave the opportunity to write more, rather than write more slowly and clearly. Not so much a level playing field, but the opportunity to play at Wembley.

My experience with open book essay based exams (usually taken remotely) is that time allowances are generous anyway and you can have too much time. Often they have a maximum word count and students have to know when to stop. When, during Covid, essay based exams (History, Law) moved from three hours to five hours remote and open book, students were overwhelmed with the additional time. Any student sitting an open book exam will have prepared their sources and added tabs to their books. Searching out new sources won’t be happening in an exam. Or at least shouldn’t be if they’ve approached their revision sensibly. Procrastination is the biggest hurdle for students in these instances without exam allowances. The extra time available to them really doesn’t make a difference.

Good your daughter has the additional time she needs, and that is what is important.

This is an interesting topic, and I really feel for the OP's YP navigating academia with extra challenges. I have one at Cambridge and like the person above said the maths and compsci exams are so time pressured that extra time would be a benefit and they don't qualify for it. I have another doing engineering at another top uni who has both physical and neurological issues and is often in a wheelchair. They are on target for a first but without the 50% extra time they have at uni and the 25% they had for A-Levels they would not even be at uni. Is it right that one get's no extra time although they would benefit, and one gets it because they need it? Absolutely, and I would rather neither needed it. If people do game the system that's their look out and I am sure they will come unstuck at some point.

That's a good example of an inappropriate accommodation, certainly

Absolutely, but once it’s been granted there’s no mechanism for revising it.

@Hillarious I agree with what you say here

"Any student sitting an open book exam will have prepared their sources and added tabs to their books. Searching out new sources won’t be happening in an exam"

Preparation prior to the timed conditions is everything.

My DS has a 5 hour timed essay exam on Tuesday. But he has to write 2 essays during that time.

Your daughter should speak to her sen team - but is she worried about not having enough time? Would anyone find 4hrs too short for the exam? ie how long is this exam expected to take maybe the 5hrs is an excessive amount of time. My daughter gets extra time - she just had a 24hr online exam which all students get 24hrs .... I am not sure she would like the idea of a 32hr exam but I am going to ask her thanks for the headsup

Wishing your DS the very best for his exam.

But there will be students in not essay based subjects that will need extra time, which is why each case needs to be assessed given its own circumstances.