{"id":1274,"date":"2023-10-23T09:39:31","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T08:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redstareducation.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1274"},"modified":"2023-10-23T09:39:31","modified_gmt":"2023-10-23T08:39:31","slug":"digitising-gcse-exams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redstareducation.co.uk\/blog\/digitising-gcse-exams\/","title":{"rendered":"Digitising GCSE Exams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this day and age, more and more aspects of our society are becoming digitised. We can now gamble, communicate with strangers, and even take out loans by using our phones or computers\u2026 but it doesn\u2019t stop there. Digital exams for GCSE students are now a real possibility.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>How Would this Work?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aqa.org.uk\/digital-exams\">The AQA have stated<\/a>:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><em>\u201cThe world around us is changing. The way we test students need to change with it. Students use technology every day. They\u2019re more familiar with digital formats than a pen and paper.\u201d <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In the exam period of summer 2026, AQA plan for the reading and listening components of GCSE Italian and Polish exams to be digital. This will act as a starting point for their new approach toward student examination.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>These digital exams will appear as traditional exam papers on a screen. This mode of examination will allow students to bookmark pages to return to questions and they will be able to enter special characters or accented letters using special toolbars. Students will be unable to access the internet, auto correct, or spell check.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/filestore.aqa.org.uk\/content\/news\/G02404-ON-SCREEN-EXAMS-REPORT-2022.PDF\">Key Findings of Report Commissioned by AQA<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>75% of teaching professionals are in favour of the change<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>81% of Head Teachers feel the digitisation of exams is inevitable<\/li>\n<li>87% of teaching professionals agree that school infrastructure would need upgrading<\/li>\n<li>In the most economically deprived areas, 86% of teachers believe their students don\u2019t have enough access to technology at home to prepare for digital exams<\/li>\n<li>In the most affluent areas, 61% of teachers believe their students don\u2019t have enough access to technology at home to prepare for digital exams<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1284\" src=\"https:\/\/www.redstareducation.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-mikhail-nilov-9159041-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"406\" height=\"270\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.redstareducation.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-mikhail-nilov-9159041-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.redstareducation.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-mikhail-nilov-9159041-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.redstareducation.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-mikhail-nilov-9159041-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.redstareducation.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-mikhail-nilov-9159041-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.redstareducation.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pexels-mikhail-nilov-9159041-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 406px) 100vw, 406px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Advantages of the Change<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Alignment with the \u2018real world,\u2019 which is, essentially, a digital world. Digital examination could mean better preparation for the workforce by developing digital skills<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Prevention of students being penalised for illegible handwriting<\/li>\n<li>Enabling of improved test data feedback, which would help allow targeted improvements to future examinations<\/li>\n<li>Improved sustainability by eliminating the carbon footprint of producing and distributing paper-based assessments<\/li>\n<li>Quicker marking times by examiners<\/li>\n<li>Increased accessibility. The AQA have stated that the move to digital exams would mean assistive technologies could be turned on for more students with disabilities or impairments<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Disadvantages of the Change<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Unequal access to technology at home. Some students are not computer literate, lacking access to technology at home<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Unequal access to technology in schools. Schools which have well-resourced ICT facilities will inevitably be able to manage the shift to digital exams more easily. This gap will likely be largest between state schools and private schools<\/li>\n<li>Loss of handwriting. Author, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2022\/01\/05\/handwriting-could-become-history-like-latin-thanks-digital-gcse\/\">Colm Tobin, has argued<\/a> that handwriting could <strong><em>\u201cgo the way of Latin and Greek\u201d<\/em><\/strong> and <em><strong>\u201cwould within a generation, almost disappear\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<li>Teachers would have to adopt new teaching approaches to better prepare students for digital exams, with AQA\u2019s commissioned report stating, \u201cstudents and teachers would need to learn new skills in the preparation for on-screen examinations\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Maths teachers surveyed tended to be more sceptical about the digitisation of exams<\/li>\n<li>Increased time spent looking at a screen. Many teenagers and adults spend much of their down time watching television or going on their phone or laptop. So, if we start introducing digital exams, and thus also introduce much higher levels of digital learning in order to prepare students for them, just how much time will they spend staring at a screen all day?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Overall, there are both advantages and drawbacks to these changes in GCSE examination, but before these changes are implemented some changes certainly need to be made. Namely, improving student access to technology and adapting the style of teaching given to students to better prepare them for digital examination.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this day and age, more and more aspects of our society are becoming digitised. We can now gamble, communicate with strangers, and even take out loans by using our phones or computers\u2026 but it doesn\u2019t stop there. Digital exams for GCSE students are now a real possibility.\u00a0 How Would this Work?\u00a0 The AQA have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[742,747,736,737,738,739,740,743,746,744,745,741,48],"class_list":["post-1274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-aqa","tag-computer","tag-digital-examination","tag-digital-exams","tag-digitisation","tag-gcse","tag-gcse-students","tag-gcses","tag-private-schools","tag-school","tag-state-schools","tag-student-examination","tag-technology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Digitising GCSE Exams - 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