A third of Scottish pupils have at least one additional support need (ASN). Some of the most common factors in ASN - including dyslexia - affect pupils’ ability to read, write and spell, and having a device can transform their experience of school.
Pupils can dictate their work using tools that turn speech into text, as well as use the device to read aloud text that they might struggle to make sense of independently.
Now, in some Scottish local authorities, children are being handed their own iPads in P4, at the age of just seven or eight, and are getting used to such tools.
In its 2021 manifesto for the Holyrood election, the SNP promised it would provide “every pupil with their own laptop or device and a free internet connection”.
In June last year, the education secretary at the time - Shirley-Anne Somerville - told the Scottish Parliament almost 280,000 laptops or other devices “have been or are in the process of being distributed” to pupils. But when these pupils enter the senior phase of secondary school, and come to sit exams, the chances are, says Paul Nisbet, they won’t be allowed to use the devices they have grown up with.
Nisbet, an expert in communication and assistive technology and the director of the University of Edinburgh’s CALL Scotland, says that is not because the use of technology is barred from national assessments - this year, one in five students sitting exams received some kind of support, including getting permission to use ICT and digital exam papers.
Rather, the issue is that under Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) rules, devices used in exams cannot be connected to the internet - and that makes it hard to use the technology that many students have access to in class.
Nisbet says: “Very few students are using Chromebooks or iPads to support them in an exam, even though everybody in the whole school has been provided with a Chromebook or an iPad. So the situation is, we are providing them with this modern technology and very few of them, if any, use them to support their additional support needs in examinations.
“Instead, staff are having to dig out all their old Windows laptops or desktops, or commandeer the Windows machines in business and IT [school departments]. And then the students and the staff have all got to remind themselves how to use digital papers on a Windows machine.”
He adds: “It’s a different interface; it’s not what the pupils are used to, and you have to practise. It just makes things harder and it’s not a satisfactory situation - and we have known about the problem for years.”
However, Nisbet is optimistic this year - following a series of pilots he hopes will get underway in the coming weeks - that students might be able to use their own devices in the 2024 SQA exams.
He says that two working groups have been set up, one looking at how Chromebooks might be used in the exams and the other focusing on iPads. Three tools will be trialled: exam.net; Trelson Assessment and OrbitNote.
“The hope is we find some students who might like to trial these and have a few practises. If that works for staff and students, maybe the students could try them for their prelims and if everybody is happy, and the SQA is happy, maybe we could use them for exams next year,” he adds.
Nisbet says the tools set to be trialled this year are designed for high-stakes secure assessment: “Basically, what happens is, you log in to an app on your device and use the pin code [to access the exam]. And once you are in there you are locked in, you can’t go out.”
An SQA spokesperson said there were challenges to ensuring a fair and consistent approach to the use of devices in exams, and that it was working closely with CALL Scotland “to explore secure ways of allowing young people to access digital question papers via their own device”.
The spokesperson added that the SQA would shortly be asking parents and carers, as well as students and schools, for feedback on their experience of the alternative assessment arrangement process, in a bid to learn where improvements could be made in future exam diets.
This year, during the external exam diet in the spring, record-breaking numbers of students had special arrangements in place to give them the best chance of success. Headteachers say accommodating all requests is becoming increasingly difficult - especially when it comes to providing separate accommodation, given the often limited amount of space in schools.
For 2023, there were a total of 91,880 requests for special assessment arrangements from 28,345 students, or roughly a fifth of those sitting exams. They varied from those wanting separate accommodation and additional time to those needing scribes and readers, or access to technology.
Enable use of up-to-date technology in exams
Nisbet believes that enabling the use of the most up-to-date technology in exams - as well as advantaging the students who have become accustomed to using them - could also ease the pressure on schools.
He says: “Organising all the different assessment arrangements is a huge, huge effort. The support for learning department will have enormous spreadsheets or Word tables with every single day and every single student that needs some help - whether it’s a reader or a scribe; what type of technology they are allowed to use; if it can have a spellcheck. There will be an extra time - 35 minutes here, 45 minutes there.
“It’s just a massive job. So, because these systems are designed to do this at scale, I think schools will start using them for internal assessment as well.”
Nisbet says that not all students with ASN, with permission to use technology in exams, might want to use iPads - especially as, when typing, half the screen is taken up with the keyboard. The key point, though, is that they should have the choice, he says.
He adds: “We shouldn’t assume that because you have got an iPad in class, you want to use that same device for an examination. But the fact that you can’t because of other reasons is unacceptable. The students I’m thinking about learn to become independent, successful learners using this technology and then they’ve got to use something different in the exam.
“That’s not appropriate. And I’m not sure how on earth we got ourselves into a situation where we have got contracts to provide every learner in secondary with these devices - and nobody thought it might be handy to work out whether you could use them in an exam.”
Now, though, many years on from the rollout of the first one-on-one device scheme - which Nisbet believes started with Highland Council, back in 2017, when they began to provide Chromebooks to pupils - change could be on the horizon.
