Today, thousands of young people will receive their GCSE results. For students this marks the end of months, if not years, of hard work.
Meanwhile, markers will have spent hours analysing exam papers, politicians will debate education standards, parents will anxiously await the news, and schools will celebrate success stories.
Yet amidst the focus on final grades, a fundamental question often gets missed; did the assessment experience itself give every candidate a fair, authentic chance to show what they knew and what they’re capable of?
Candidate experience really matters. When an assessment format creates unnecessary friction, it risks measuring a student’s tolerance for stress rather than their abilities. At a roundtable we hosted recently with general and professional awarding body leaders discussing today's candidate experience, some of the words they used included “stressful”, “slow” and even “archaic”.
Do you agree with the insights shared?
That’s not to say that there’s not a place for traditional fixed-format exams, but rather that we must ask whether our delivery models still serve candidates as well as they could.
That brings us to the debate around digital assessment. Too often, it's framed as a binary question of screens versus paper, but in reality, it's much more nuanced.
I recently spoke with an A-Level student at a conference who highlighted this disconnect perfectly. While almost all her prep work for History and English was typed, she then had to switch to handwriting lengthy answers under exam conditions. For her, an on-screen option would have been far more in keeping with how she’d been learning. Yet for Maths she preferred paper, where scribbling down calculations and working through a problem spatially comes more naturally.
That conversation brought home to me the fundamental point, that assessment design should remove barriers, not create them.
In the conversations I have every day in my work, it’s clear that nobody is arguing that every assessment should immediately move online. Rather, there’s increasing interest at all levels, from teachers to examiners to students, about how we can implement the right assessment models to suit individual qualifications.
So, the big question is if technology can improve accessibility and reduce stress, without compromising standards, shouldn't we at least be testing it now?
The goal isn't digital transformation for its own sake. The goal is better educational outcomes, making sure that the candidate experience and assessment format reinforces what’s being assessed, rather than acting as a barrier.
We can also look abroad for inspiration, such as in New Zealand, where students can choose between paper and on-screen assessments. Since 2019, participation in digital exams has grown from around 14,000 students to more than 180,000 across 1,000 schools. It shows that digital assessment can be introduced securely, at scale and in a way that gives candidates the choice they welcome.
The good news is the UK already knows how to implement successful, evidence-led educational reform. When I was 17, my cohort was the first year to trial AS Levels. This was not a one and done approach, they were phased in, evaluated, refined and where necessary adapted.
We don’t need to overhaul everything overnight, but digital assessment deserves that same willingness to innovate. This means piloting different elements and measuring the impact. Listening to the feedback of candidates, accreditors and teachers, and scaling what works.
Results day provides an opportunity for us to judge not just our candidates, but the systems through which we assess them.
If new models of assessment enable candidates to demonstrate their abilities more fairly, it’s time to get on with trialling and implementing them, to give students the experience they deserve.
Author: Dr Gráinne Watson | Chief Operating Officer
As COO, Gráinne ensures our business runs smoothly, with the right technology and processes in place to operate efficiently and sustainably, while delivering on our strategy. She also leads our Assessment division. A seasoned technology and transformation expert, she drives our operations to focus on the learner experience, delivering operational excellence that ensures reliable, accessible and secure customer services.
