Accessibility advantage or digital disadvantage?

Why the push for a digital overhaul?

The pressure to go digital is real. AQA’s chief executive has argued that not introducing on-screen exams would be ‘a disservice to young people’, given the digital world most will work in. Ofqual and the DfE’s three-year joint research project identified genuine potential, and Ofqual’s proposed approach is measured: no personal devices, a cap on high-entry subjects and rigorous accreditation requirements. Pen and paper stay for now.

There is something genuinely exciting in the possibilities. On-screen assessment could open the door to faster marking, instant results and a smaller mountain of paper crates. Accessibility could help level the playing field for students with additional needs. Helen Scally, head of chemistry at Turnbull High School, captures that hope: ‘Digital works well with PISA assessments, particularly when using simulations to assess inquiry.’

Cambridge International Education launched digital examinations in June 2026, marking the start of a planned implementation across its full IGCSE, AS and A-level curriculums.

Does the medium change the message?

Daisy Christodoulou, director of education at No More Marking, gets to the heart of it: ‘Moving test content from paper to screen isn’t a neutral change. It changes the way students interact with content and will also affect classroom practice. Everyone tends to skim and scan more on screen, so we need to consider if that is what we want to encourage in our education system.’

Her concern is well founded. Government research shows persistent mode effects – the ways different questioning methods create differences in results – mean students respond differently to identical questions depending on how they are presented.

The subject-specific problem

Here, not only do the concerns multiply but chemistry teachers independently raise similar issues.

Making mistakes is fundamental to learning. Joel Kenyon, head of science at Dixons Academies Trust, Liverpool, explains: ‘Science is learnt through trial and error. Students work through chemical equations, chemical bonding structures and atomic formulae without immediately being at the right answer. Instead, they write, check their errors, notice patterns and conclude the correct answer. Using a computer assumes students know without trial and error. That’s not how science works.’

On-screen exams could also affect working memory and cognitive load – an issue on which there was striking consensus. Colin McGill, associate professor of teacher education at Edinburgh Napier University, warns: ‘The government’s research shows some students perform more poorly when taking an assessment on screen – especially in heavily worded contexts such as English exams. That’s before we even think about the added difficulties of communicating chemistry concepts on a screen, e.g. equations, subscripts and superscripts, curly arrows and structures.’

Saunia Hussain, science teacher and chemistry curriculum coordinator at Haberdashers’ Borough Academy, echoes this notion: ‘Introducing a digital format in final exams could add unnecessary cognitive load. There is a real risk of assessing digital navigation skills as much as, or more than, their chemistry understanding.’

Matthew Parks, principal examiner, adds an examiner’s perspective: ‘The added cognitive load of working digitally, particularly when processing and structuring numerical thinking, may reduce students’ ability to clearly communicate what they know under exam pressure.’

On the specific challenge of diagrams and structures, Matthew Gundry, head of chemistry at Grey Court School, is unequivocal: ‘Any tools currently for drawing organic structures would, in my opinion, give too much away and would therefore not be able to be used as effective assessment tools.’

William Fenton, head of chemistry at Birkenhead Sixth Form College, notes that ‘students slow down when having to deal with the software’. Though a tablet and stylus could in theory address some of these problems, as Neil Goalby, head of chemistry at Bancroft’s School, observes: ‘Many current exam questions could not be asked, and we would lose the ability to test certain important skills. Perhaps a hybrid approach is best.’

Tech availability issues

A stark practical reality compounds these pedagogical concerns. The DfE’s Technology in schools survey (2025) found that, while 95% of secondary schools reported having laptops available, 77% said they were available to fewer than half of students at any one time. Ofqual has also acknowledged the very real risks of cybersecurity threats, technical failures and new forms of malpractice with increased technology usage.

However, it’s the equity dimension that cuts particularly deep. Nick Barker, school teacher fellow at the University of Warwick who works with pupil premium students, comments: ‘This technology is likely to increase social disparity. The least advantaged children thrive on positive human connections with adults who know them, believe in them and want to encourage them. There is no IT interface that can provide that.’

For SEND students, the picture is equally mixed. Ofqual’s own research acknowledges digital exams could benefit some learners with SEND through built-in accessibility tools. Yet research from CALL Scotland (2025) found that students with dyslexic traits who had developed effective assistive technology skills on their school devices could not transfer those skills to exam settings.

The picture is not uniformly bleak. Students who struggle with handwriting, those with physical disabilities and some learners with SEND could benefit significantly. Faster results and reduced marking burdens are not trivial, either. Students will benefit equitably only if the transition is handled with care: ensuring exam devices match those students use day to day, investing in infrastructure before rollout, gathering robust evidence on disadvantaged students first – as the EEF has urged – and listening to teachers and examiners in the room.

If the assessment cannot yet capture the visual language of the subject, it is not ready to replace the exam it claims to replicate. Examiners are often practitioners who bring what they learn back into their classrooms. If automated marking quietly replaces them, something valuable disappears from the profession without anyone quite deciding to remove it. As Daisy Christodoulou observes, there may be no solutions here, only trade-offs. The goal, as Swedish researchers now put it, should be recalibration rather than reversal. The UK would do well to hold that thought.