Alternative assessment following specific request – special consideration and equitable assessment - guidelines
Guidelines
Intent
This document will help academic and teaching staff who have been advised that an alternative assessment (or an equitable assessment arrangement) is required for a student following action under the RMIT Special Consideration or Equitable Assessment Policies. The guidelines are intended to help you decide an appropriate alternative assessment and any accompanying provisions for the conduct of the assessment. In some cases a continuing response to the student’s condition or situation may be called for.
These guidelines serve to link you to a number of useful resources available online – rather than repeat that material. To take advantage of these links you will need to read this online. The guidelines are available on the RMIT Policies and Procedures website (they can be found in the A_Z index). The guidelines may also be useful for Special Consideration panels.
About this request for an alternative assessment
It is quite likely that this request has come out of the blue and at a busy time for you. To get straight to the point the student may have a short or long term condition or in a situation which in fairness to this student requires alternative assessment(s). The student may have a short term physical impairment, mental health condition or may be facing an issue such as illness or family emergency which is placing undue demands on them – and which, following RMIT policies, have been confirmed as requiring the alternative assessment. See ‘The purpose of alternative assessment’.
A student may advise you of their condition but note that students have the right to confidentiality of information related to their disability (Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act, 1992) so you will not necessarily be told the nature of the student’s disability (if it is indeed a disability and not another short term issue such as an injury or a family emergency). We recognise that this will add to the difficulty of your task.
You will however be advised of the difficulties or problems which the student faces with the existing assessment and assessment situations more generally. These may be called functional difficulties, so for example a student experiencing intense pain may have a functional difficulty of an inability to maintain writing posture during an exam period or a student with a mental health condition may have a functional difficulty of extreme examination-related stress. You can use your student’s specific functional difficulties to help you decide an appropriate alternative assessment.
The assessment adjustment will comprise an alternative assessment type (for example, oral presentation rather than written essay or exam) and possibly an accompanying assessment arrangement (for example, a student who is having physical difficulties writing due to injury may need a little more time).
A process which will help you decide the alternative assessment
The following five step process will help you decide the alternative assessment. While we have presented this as a logical process, in practice the final decision is a collaboration/ negotiation involving you, a ‘lead agent’ for the student (usually a Disability Liaison Officer from the DLU) and the student (though the student may choose not to be present at a meeting). The student and their lead agent have usually built up a mutually trusting relationship – so necessary to help the student through their situation.
In preparation for a joint meeting you could clarify options for alternative assessments by reflecting on each of the following steps 1 to 4.
1. Clarify the situation
After making sure you know what is being asked of you, clarify the circumstances of the case particularly the functional difficulties faced by the student. These functional difficulties will have led the student, DLU and/or Special Consideration Panel to request alternative assessment(s).
The Disability Liaison Officer would welcome early consultation at this stage particularly in relation to students who are presenting with temporary health or physical injury issues. Remember if you are meeting the student, under the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act, 1992 you cannot ask the student to disclose their condition (though a student can volunteer information).
2. Decide the key learning outcomes
Refer back to the course to clarify for yourself the key learning outcomes which your current assessment is designed to assess. In HE it may help to consider learning outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes but try to identify the one or two critical outcomes. In TAFE these learning outcomes will comprise competencies.
The key learning outcomes can be seen to be the essential or inherent requirements of the course that all students must demonstrate. For more on this topic refer to Determining the essential or inherent requirements of a course (QUT Equity 2008)
In a joint meeting with the student’s lead agent (and student if attending) it may help if you briefly described these key learning outcomes and why they are critical.
3. Decide the alternative assessment method
Thinking of the learning outcomes AND functional difficulties being faced by your student what alternative assessment method would be appropriate? Ask yourself what other forms of assessment could be used to assess for these outcomes. For example, a student who is being asked to demonstrate skills of analysis based on a case study but has great difficulty writing a project report may be offered an opportunity to give an oral presentation covering the same topics. See the case studies for more examples.
A few tips:
- The Attachment A contains a few resources which may be useful. You will find a list of assessment methods which may trigger a useful idea for you. There are also links to several online resources based on the functional difficulty your student may be experiencing. The first is Australian and the second is in the UK. Click on the relevant link to get to some constructive suggestions for assessment – methods and arrangements. Taking the student with writing difficulties, we have links to ‘physical disability’ in one resource and to ‘motor/ manual dexterity difficulties’ with the other.
- Discuss options with an experienced colleague (often a quick chat with another academic/ teacher can identify a number of possibilities).
Present and discuss one or more options with the student’s lead agent and student making sure you explain the key learning outcomes you are focussing on. This is a two-way process where you are clarifying the functional difficulty as well as helping you finalise your preferences for alternative assessment.
4. If necessary, determine any associated assessment arrangements
Once you have selected your alternative assessment method it is appropriate to consider again the student’s conditions. For example, if a student has a reduced ability to concentrate (perhaps due to depression) consider allowing some extra time for the assessment task. Such steps are taken to confirm that the assessment is fair and reasonable for the student. You could look at the list of options for equitable assessment arrangements that the Disability Liaison Officer’s use (refer to ‘Assessment Challenges for Some Students’ in Attachment A).
You will find the student’s lead agent constructive in making suggestions about assessment arrangements.
5. Confirming, reporting and implementing these decisions
When closing a meeting with the student’s lead agent and student we suggest you summarise the decisions about alternative assessment and associated arrangements in full.
You will find advice about reporting and implementation in the initial letter you received. In particular follow the advice about reporting new exams and other arrangements as there should be no misunderstanding or miscommunication about who is responsible for conducting assessment.
In general once you have reached an agreed decision then you (or other academic or administrative staff member) responsible for the decision needs to email the student with all the details: when the assessment will take place, where and at what time and how it is going to be done. If the decision is to be an oral exam then those who will be assessing the student need to be identified to the student. If this decision is made in conjunction with the DLU or the ARG then records need to be kept in the ARG and/or the DLU as well as the School in the student's file. If you are offering an exam outside of the formal exam period then the School is responsible for the supervision, provision of appropriate space and the implementation of equitable assessment arrangements.
This rarely happens, but if a negotiated solution cannot be reached the Academic Registrar can become involved.
Some frequently asked questions (FAQs)
1. This is just too much work on top of what I’m doing already. What can I do?
RMIT policies ensure that a student who is facing particular difficulties – usually at no fault of their own - can be assessed fairly. Those policies are intended to reflect the standards we would all expect to offer and live by. The student will certainly appreciate your work on their behalf but in some cases there will be matters to attend to which are demanding on your time. We hope these guidelines and the assistance you get from the DLU and Academic Registrar’s office as well as locally in your School can help you deal with this matter expeditiously and reasonably. If not, please let us know how we can improve!
2. Why am I being asked to make an exception for this student? Isn’t this action an unfair advantage for this student?
The student is in a particular short term situation which, if not adjusted with a change in assessment in some way, could well unfairly prejudice their academic progress. An adjustment now will save heartache for the student and quite likely resources and time for staff at the university later on.
This initiative is removing an unfair disadvantage to a student not giving them an unfair advantage.
3. Competency standards must be applied to all students. There is no room to move.
Yes, all students do need to demonstrate competency and, the competency standard should not be adapted whatever the difficulty. However it is very reasonable to be flexible on the means by which a student can demonstrate that they have met the standard.
4. How can I be sure that this student is being tested for the same thing as other students?
As you will see the key is to decide the central learning outcomes you are assessing ALL students. Your current assessment task is assessing students for those learning outcomes and you are assessing this student against the same learning outcomes.
5. Do we have to do this alternative assessment for everyone else too?
No. The alternative assessment is being arranged for students who have pursued their rights under RMIT’s Special Consideration or Equitable Assessment policies.
6. I do not think there is an alternative assessment for this learning outcome. What can I do?
There may be a few situations where it seems a learning outcome cannot be assessed in any other way by a student with a particular functional difficulty. For example, oral presentation skills may be impossible to assess due to a temporary speech impairment (for example stuttering due to stress). You could consider allowing additional time and providing a setting which is less stressful for students.
In a few situations even arrangements such as these will not be possible. At this point some professional discretion may be called for. Where a student is facing temporary difficulties and other courses in the program may be assessing oral presentation skills (continuing with this example) you may decide that allowance can be made in this case. All other learning outcomes could perhaps be addressed by having the student present a script for a presentation and write responses to written questions of students and teachers.
7. My preferred alternative assessment makes calls for some resources or extra staff support. Can anything be done to help in this case?
Some alternative assessment may incur a cost for the School. An example there would be a modest cost to help a student who is unable to make a class presentation and could use digital audio recording to make an analysis and presentation. In situations such as this a few phone calls could help, for example, to the program coordinator to ascertain where technical support may be available; to the technical officer to clarify technology options and ways in which the technology is available to the student. Where necessary some in-person support may be called for (for example direct advice to the student to help them use the technology).
Where substantial costs are incurred there is financial assistance available – retrospectively and subject to some conditions. At the beginning of each year all Australian universities make a claim to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), retrospectively, for additional costs that are incurred by HE students who have a disability or long term medical condition in the previous year. Examples of additional costs would be sign interpreting, notetaking, alternate formatting, the purchasing of hard and software technology. For RMIT to claim their costs they need to identify the student by their student number only and the costs they incurred, have the acquittal audited and sent to DEEWR by the end of February. RMIT will be reimbursed for any cost over and above the first $500.00. So if Sally Smith is deaf and requires the use of sign interpreting, notetaking and some additional interpreting at exam times plus one to one supervision....all these costs will be identified and claimed against her student number. The same would go for Johnny Brown who is a blind student who has alternate formatting costs, exam paper formatting costs and exam supervision, raised line diagram. If Johnny Brown has to have an alternative assessment that incurs additional costs then they can be added to his account and reclaimed from DEEWR. Remember that RMIT is responsible to meet the first $500.00 of the student's costs.
The cost of services for TAFE students comes from a grant that comes to the university from Office of Training and Tertiary Education (Skills Victoria). An acquittal does not need to be generated for Skills Victoria.
8. How can I suggest an alternative assessment to an exam when our professional association requires exams?
Our experience when these instances have been followed up has been that professional associations focus on the intended learning outcomes rather than methods of assessment. Even if exams (or any other form of assessment) are preferred they are comfortable with the way RMIT is handling instances such as these given they are individual students in temporarily trying situations. They are supportive of fair and reasonable assessment.
If you have real concerns you may like to discuss this issue with your Head of School.
9. I feel concerned about holding discussions with students who seem ‘at risk’.
This is perfectly natural given the often deeply personal nature of the condition or situation being faced by the student. You may like to consult the DLU about how to approach the discussions. Note it is important to present a very positive image of a disability, mental health condition and health condition as there is so much negativity, shame and misunderstanding about having these conditions. It is worth mentioning that students, particularly international students, only approach the DLU in ‘last resort’ situations, or at the crisis point due to the shame factor.
10. I’ve got the feeling that the preferred alternative assessment has already been decided between the student and Disability Liaison Unit or Special Consideration Panel. Is that appropriate?
The academic and educational perspective is a vital contribution towards a negotiated solution for the student. The negotiation is amongst equals. The DLU or Special Consideration Panel by virtue of considerable prior experience with many student situations across RMIT and more direct knowledge of your student’s specific situation may have offered suggestions. In some situations they may suggest that one particular mode of assessment is unsuitable. However the DLU and Special Consideration Panel do not have practical knowledge of your discipline, your course, nor your intended learning outcomes.
Note that it would assist all parties if the inherent requirements of each course were published in the course guide.
11. What is the role of the Disability Liaison Unit and Academic Registrar’s group?
The role of the Academic Registrar is partly as a conduit of information including associated with the decisions of the Special Consideration Panels. Medical documentation and counselling assessments can't be forwarded as they come under the Medical Health Records and privacy Acts. The actual decisions about what method of assessment to use will be determined by negotiation as described earlier. You can seek further advice from the DLU or Health Service to assist you in the negotiations. The decision needs to be fair and reasonable.
If you want advice how to reasonably support students with respect to the Equitable Assessment Arrangements and Reasonable Adjustment processes please contact the Coordinator of the Disability Liaison Unit. See also the DLU website for staff.
Case studies
Case study Scenario 1: Student cannot present her design work
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Students in architecture are normally asked to present their designs for assessment in front of a panel of teachers. The presentation of the work to a client group is an important skill for most designers. |
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A student advises the course coordinator that she is in hospital for a prolonged period and cannot attend the scheduled panel session. One option is to grant an extension of time but her work is largely complete and fresh in her mind. She also feels delays at this stage may threaten her progress later. |
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What can the teacher offer the student in this situation? |
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The course coordinator advises the student to prepare a précis which effectively replaces the client presentation. This written statement will explain the work and discuss the work’s intentions. She is to describe the underlying concepts and how they are implemented through the constructs of her designs. |
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Usually a student presenting to a panel also responds to the panellists’ questions. In this case the teacher advises the student clearly of the expected contents of the précis and of the need for more, sufficient to ensure the assessors fully understand the student’s intentions. |
The following two case studies come from a British source.
Case Study Scenario 2: Presentation difficulties
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A student is studying on a BA Journalism course. The course requires the student to undertake written work, group work and a final individual presentation, which entails standing in front of the group of students and academic staff. At no time has the student disclosed a problem, indeed the student has excelled in all areas of work. One week before the presentation the student discloses a social phobia that would make the presentation impossible. All students are required to undertake the presentation as it represents a substantial percentage of the final mark. |
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What can be done in order to satisfy the course criteria and maintain the academic standard of the course? |
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Discussion: |
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The crucial aspect of this scenario is the skill which is being tested by the presentation, and whether this is required to satisfy a particular learning outcome. It is also important to consider why this student had chosen to do this particular course; i.e. it could be that they were interested in a particular aspect of journalism which would not require presentations, but may have allowed stories / copy to be provided by email or over the phone. |
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If the learning outcome does require presentation skills then it may be possible for the student to make a video of their presentation, using facilities which have a camera for recording the speaker whilst also allowing them to cut to a computer or TV screen. |
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Gravestock, P (2006) DisabilityCPD: Continuing Professional Development for Staff Involved in the Learning and Teaching of Disabled Students, Cheltenham: University of Gloucestershire, p 62, viewed 18 November 2008 < http://resources.glos.ac.uk/tli/lets/incled/dcpd/guide.cfm > |
Case Study Scenario 3: Fatigue issues
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A student with chronic fatigue syndrome has difficulties with sitting exams back to back. The disability service suggests spacing out the end of year exams. A member of staff within the School suggests this is not possible because of work loads. The Disability Service believes the exams should be spaced out, and if the student is not able to sit the exams back to back it is likely staff will have to write a separate paper later in the year. If this happens, the staff may face additional work loads. |
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What can be done? |
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Discussion: |
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Examinations are generally unsuitable for students with chronic fatigue syndrome. This is due to problems with the muscle lactate response, which can affect writing, and cognitive issues / mental fatigue which may include decreased concentration, distractibility and problems with recall. The question to consider in this situation is ‘what is the purpose of the examination?’. If one of the learning outcomes of the course is for the student to be able to answer questions in a time-constrained situation then such an assessment may be necessary; however, if this is not the case then an alternative should be considered. Such alternatives could include: |
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A seen examination paper may be inappropriate for students with chronic fatigue syndrome, as the students may be tired and ill at the time of the examination due to the level of work that has taken place to prepare for the seen questions. |
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If an examination is a necessary form of assessment, then it may be appropriate for the student to have a scribe and for rest breaks to be allowed during the examination itself. To avoid back-to-back examinations, it is important that the provisional timetable is published early so that any problems can be identified, and hopefully rectified before the examination period (this would also be useful for other students, such as students with dyslexia). If there is some ‘local’ control over the examination setting, then it may be possible to arrange alternative formats such as splitting the examination into two halves or different days; however, the latter option would involve setting different questions, which would add to the work of the lecturers and to the process of designing and approving an examination paper. |
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Gravestock, P (2006) DisabilityCPD: Continuing Professional Development for Staff Involved in the Learning and Teaching of Disabled Students, Cheltenham: University of Gloucestershire, p 60-61, viewed 18 November 2008 < http://resources.glos.ac.uk/tli/lets/incled/dcpd/guide.cfm > |