Pens down: England’s exams regulator exploring online A-levels and GCSEs | Exams

Sitting exams utilizing pen and paper might quickly be a factor of the previous, as England’s {qualifications} regulator, Ofqual, stated it’s exploring know-how to remodel the way in which GCSEs and A-levels are administered.

The regulator’s newest company plan says Ofqual will take away regulatory limitations to permit examination boards to review using distant evaluation, digital supply and “adaptive testing” software program that tailors examination inquiries to scholar responses.

Ian Bauckham, Ofqual’s chair, stated: “The pandemic has, rightly, catalysed questions on not if however when and the way larger use of know-how and on-screen evaluation needs to be adopted.

“All proposed modifications should be rigorously assessed for his or her affect on college students, together with these with particular academic wants and disabilities.”

College leaders stated using exams delivered on-line might resolve safety considerations and permit exams to go forward in lockdown-style circumstances sooner or later.

Geoff Barton, the overall secretary of the Affiliation of College and Faculty Leaders, stated: “Our present reliance on a pen-and-paper examination system, organised at an industrial scale with Fort Knox-style safety preparations across the transportation and storing of papers, is hopelessly outdated and ripe for reform.

“The latest expertise of the pandemic has proven simply how weak it’s to surprising occasions. If on-line evaluation had been out there, it may not have been essential to cancel all summer season exams for 2 years in a row.”

However Barton and Mary Bousted, the joint basic secretary of the Nationwide Training Union, each stated Ofqual ought to take the chance for a extra radical take a look at using high-stakes exams inside the English faculty system.

“Training, and the proof of what a scholar has achieved of their time in school and school, is about excess of displaying what could be remembered in an end-of-course examination,” Bousted stated.

Ofqual stated adaptive testing might exchange using tiered GCSE exams – the place less complicated “basis tier” papers are provided to these candidates thought unable to realize excessive grades.

Adaptive testing includes adjusting the issue of a take a look at or examination to go well with the aptitude of a scholar. When a scholar solutions a query appropriately they are often offered with progressively extra demanding questions, and vice versa.

“We’d understand how tough the questions are, which signifies that college students taking totally different mixtures of questions could be in contrast and graded,” a spokesperson for Ofqual stated.

Adaptive testing is greatest suited to using multiple-choice questions or proper/unsuitable solutions in topics akin to maths.

“Whereas there aren’t any instant plans to launch adaptive testing, it’s necessary that we stock out this preliminary exploratory work each from a technical viewpoint but in addition ensuring we absolutely take account of the views of scholars, lecturers and leaders,” the spokesperson stated.