How did the UK Citizenship Test pioneer 20 years of online digital exams?

20 years ago on November 1 2005, the UK Citizenship Test was launched. An online one-hour high-stakes exam, delivered across 90 independent test centres. Life in the UK (LitUK) is one of many global tests that facilitates the citizenship and naturalisation processes.

You read that correctly – the UK government with the digital exam sector have been delivering an online exam for 20 years. Not on paper. Or as a locally downloaded file to a server - a method perfected in the mid 1990s.

An invigilated, high-stakes digital exam, delivered over the internet, hundreds of thousands of times, has been part of the UK’s fabric for 20 years.

Announced in September 2002, the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 saw LitUK introduced as part of the naturalisation process, and later for settlement in April 2007. An Advisory Group took on the unenviable job of determining the test content across 200 approved questions and the LitUK handbook. The handbook is not dissimilar to Canada’s ‘A Look at Canada’ book, that has an additional 30 minute, 20 question test.

In early February 2005 131 candidates in eight invigilated test centres across North West and North East England, West Midlands, and London took a 20 question pilot test. The mean score achieved by those citizenship-hopefuls was 79%, with a ten minute average duration time.

The final service design saw 35 concurrent candidates per centre sitting a 24 question test, with the questions randomised to ensure the entire pool of 200 questions were pre-tested. Further pilots took take place in June with 280 candidates in eight centres. For the November 1 launch day, 90 test centres were deployed: 80 in England, five in Scotland, four in Wales, and one in Northern Ireland.

LitUK was a fresh digital exam without a paper equivalent

All LitUK questions are pre-trialled. Perhaps exam owners should stipulate if their exams have the same quality control. Their response might surprise stakeholders.

Naturally, the test has its critics. Professor Thom Brooks, an American who undertook the Right To Remain and full UK Citizenship journey, has written articles about LitUK. In common with so many high-stakes exams, Professor Brooks was correct in his assertion that ‘LitUK commentary rarely, if ever, engages with those who must pass it [and this] has contributed to major problems in its design and implementation.’

Professional test psychometricians may also wince at using a 24 question test to cover such a wider and deep domain, but LitUK is only one part of the citizenship journey.

What everybody misses about LitUK is that it is an online, high-stakes test. Since the inception of mainstream computer-based testing in the 1990s, almost all deployments up to this point were done to local servers, then served up to (effectively) dumb terminals. Once the tests were completed, the results went back for processing. Many high-stakes on-screen tests are still delivered like this. In fact, it is the 30-year old model that some UK exam owners are proposing for school exam delivery.

LitUK disregarded the on-screen local download model perfected in the 1990s. In 2005, true online invigilated delivery was almost globally unprecedented.

For LitUK, the item banks and test forms are held in secure UK data centres, and the candidate’s test is called up over the internet to individual workstations. This means that no questions are held by those workstations or test centres. Incredibly innovative for 2005, but ironically, the result is not given instantly on screen, but is provided to the candidate shortly afterwards.

In 2005, 70% of UK individuals were using the internet. A test designed for those times seems appropriate. Those who shake their heads and hold their noses at digital exams have actively chosen to ignore those 20 years of UK operational delivery excellence.

It is also a pity that many remain blissfully unaware of how tests are developed, and the efforts to ensure that the test meets its objective. Test development professionals should point to how tests of this nature can help reduce opaque and arbitrary processes – the Swiss naturalisation process being just one example.

Despite being often used as an academic and political football, LitUK continues to evolve, including a review of the candidate journey and learning subscriptions for practice tests. Regardless of LitUK’s purpose, the executable vision and strategy to deliver totally online, and the daily operational excellence, deserve a much wider audience.