Infosheet | 7 tips on accessible tests and exams

Students with special needs sometimes need extra help to complete tests/exams properly because of their disability or support needs. But how do you deal with this as an educational institution? In this flyer students give 7 important tips to VET and higher education institutions to help them.

What does the flyer offer?

Accessible tests and exams studying with special needs

7 tips from students for VET, higher education institutions:

1. Listen to what students with special needs indicate they need.
   Students themselves often know best which facility suits them. Yet student input is not always adequately considered.
   “Educational institutions need to listen better to students and not determine it for them.”
2. Create an overview of possible facilities.
   An overview gives students more peace of mind and clarity if they know in advance what facilities are available to them.
3. Inform students timely about how to request accommodations and facilities.
   The examination board often meets only once a month to review applications. As a result, students sometimes cannot get a provision in time. Therefore, it is important that students know how to request a provision in time.
   “Sometimes a course started just after the exam board meeting. This resulted in long waits, no provision and sometimes having to use a retake as the first moment of review.”
4. Make one person within the educational institution responsible.
   Students are often sent from pillar to post. It is often unclear to them who they should contact.
   It would help if one person within the educational institution is responsible for the process and can support the student.
   “The figuring out is complicated and takes time. This comes at the expense of studying or your student life.”
5. Allocate facilities for a year so it does not have to be reapplied for each course.
   On some courses, you have to reapply for a facility for each course or semester. This demands a lot from students. Therefore, it is good if you only have to apply for facilities once a year.
6. Always provide an explanation as to why an application is not approved.
   The examination board decides whether to grant a facility. Sometimes students are not given an explanation as to why an application is not approved. This makes it difficult for them to find an alternative solution that will be approved.
   “To find out why a facility is not possible, you are sent from pillar to post.”
7. Provide alternative test formats.
   If alternative test formats are not provided, students with special needs sometimes cannot take all the questions on the test or even the entire test. Sometimes, as an educational institution, you are dependent on external test providers for this. Stay in discussion with them to make alternative forms of testing possible for these tests as well.
   “At my study program, I have to take tests that everyone else gets. Because of my visual impairment, I can’t read the questions.”
   “I don’t get the test in a closed environment, which means I can’t use reading software.”
   “I can’t do questions with a corresponding image anyway, which means I always lose points.”

The 7 tips were collected during the May 18, 2022, think-aloud session with students with special needs from VET, higher education schools and university. An initiative of: ISO, Ieder(in), LSVb and ECIO.

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