Why timed exams fail students - and how untimed tests are fairer

Time's up for timed exams

Children completing a timed test in the distant past - where timed tests belong. Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

What if exams designed to measure children’s development are setting them up to fail?

I’ve had my third SATs week this week: three maths exams, two on SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) and one long-ass reading paper. The skill refinement and the stress avoidance tactics and the testing testing testing are finally at and end.

But my dream of changing exams forever goes on.

They were invented well over a century ago, in a bygone era where different skills mattered, and are no longer fit for purpose. Especially when we have ready alternatives and a wealth of research to show us the way¹.

But what exactly does the research show us?

Exams will never be accurate

Summative tests like SATs papers aren’t wholly accurate. They can’t be. It’s literally not possible.

Why?

Well, firstly, they’re intended to test children’s knowledge. This is fine - without a decent bit of knowledge it’s not possible to pass them. I have no issue there.

But timed exams add another measure of children’s success - how completely and accurately they express that knowledge within a given time frame.

And it means that children who do have the knowledge can fail by running out of time. Which, to me, is utterly crap.

And what else does the time do? It adds stress. We’re now testing how much children can show in a limited amount of time and while suffering with additional, unnecessary stress.

The exams aren’t measuring what they know anymore.

There’s more - what about individual differences? No one’s visual processing speeds and abilities are the same, putting most at an unfair disadvantage; I say most because, for most, someone better able to process the information exists.

Sure, this may only make seconds of difference for a lot of them. But, for some, it’s a lot more than that.

Who suffers most with timed exams?

Dyslexic children are proven to have common beneficial traits: entrepreneurial mindsets, creative thinking, improved spatial processing². The list really is impressive.

But visual processing of written words is a disadvantage and, at SATs level, the timed exams are all delivered in writing.

Dyslexic children can benefit from an extra 25% time allowance, but this doesn’t necessarily mean a thing because:

• teachers/schools must to apply for the extra time, and some don’t

• there are dyslexic children out there who aren’t diagnosed in time for the exams to begin

• the impact dyslexia has on each individual’s ability to process words differs, so a one-size-fits-all time allowance is meaningless, and

• who’s to say 25% accounts fairly for the disadvantage of being dyslexic?

So, even though we recognise this disadvantage, not everyone who should from the adjustment does.

And, I’ll add, who’s to say it helps at all? For some dyslexic children, processing doesn’t get any easier with more time - if anything, they’re more mentally tired in that extra 25% than during the rest of the paper. It’s like offering someone more time to run a marathon: they’ll hardly feel driven into sprinting by a new lease of life, just more exhausted as they drag their way through the last few miles.

The solution - untimed exams

So, the first thing we need to do to exams - make them untimed. There’s enough research now showing that this is fairer, kinder and - above all - a more accurate representation of what children know and can do.

This would mean test would no longer test the speed of a child’s work, nor their ability to battle the stress of running out of time.

The focus would finally be on their ability to answer the challenge before them.

Testing would be accurate at last.

What are your thoughts? Anything I’ve missed? Let me know in the comments.

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Read more from How to be a Teacher

This isn’t the only way our systems fail SEND students. Read below why our primary-secondary transitions also need to change:

1. Gernsbacher MA, Soicher RN, Becker-Blease KA. Four Empirically Based Reasons Not to Administer Time-Limited Tests. Transl Issues Psychol Sci. 2020 Jun;6(2):175-190. doi: 10.1037/tps0000232. PMID: 32582819; PMCID: PMC7314377. Available at: https://teachanywhere.opened.ca/2024/03/three-reasons-to-stop-using-time-restricted-tests/

2. WIRED, 2011: Q&A: The Unexpected Benefits of Dyslexia. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2011/09/dyslexic-advantage/