What are assessment professionals actually telling us?

You can’t beat listening to an engaging story. First-hand, hard-yards, coal-face experience. Not borrowed anecdotes or banal platitudes. And that’s why I enjoyed this week’s London event hosted by Peridot Partners. Hearing the experiences and needs of the exam sector is a real treat for me. In a safe space, where panellists can speak openly, and share their on-the-ground reality. 

Jackie Panter of Kaplan set the tone and a key issue in exam delivery. Reasonable Adjustments, Accommodations and Special Accommodations for exam candidates were highlighted multiple times during the day. Exam owner’s legal obligations for candidates with law-protected characteristics are often mis-understood, and it’s becoming a huge logistical and commercial problem to cover increasing costs. 

Exam owners are being caught in a pincer movement: increasing candidate demand for accommodations, backed by law, encountered by resistance to funding additional candidate service.

Jackie told delegates that candidates expect service providers and exam teams to pivot quickly on Adjustments, increasingly on-the-fly. And not just for pre-booked needs and requirements either. The notion of insisting candidates ‘declare evidence’ for accommodations is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for exam owners. Evolving and fracturing social norms, coupled with litigious threat, is an escalating delivery risk that few are coping with, and is a major anxiety for the sector. 

Exam delivery risk is increasing. But not because of tech. Exam owner anxiety in providing accommodations successfully is real and growing. 

Logistical point-of-delivery issues remain stubborn. Unstable wi-fi, data storage, proxy testers infiltrating test delivery software, workplace firewalls, and IT literacy were all called out by the expert panel. The amount of preparation demanded for remote proctoring delivery still challenges some candidates. It was noted that some exam owners still need bricks-and-mortar centre options. 

Getting learners to successfully prep their own exam room, rather than ‘turn-up-and-sit-down’ is still challenging. 

I was intrigued by one panellist commenting that the introduction of remote proctoring has been helpful, as a way to become closer to their candidates and their needs. An unintended benefit that many overlook. 

It struck me during the AI panel that many are just waiting to be told what to do. This drift and non-engagement is worrying. While learners have dived headlong into AI, panellists and delegates who cling to singular assessment instruments and traditional methods, such as open-book essay, are starting to look anachronistic and archaic.

TPAC Conference 2025 - Image c/o Eintech-Peridot-Kaplan

Delegates are desperate to hear about actual AI deployments within assessment: proofs of concept, trials, learner feedback, even just to say what doesn't work. For example, we’re approaching 30 years of AI/ machine learning grading of exam scripts. There are research papers reviews of what’s out there. 

Education professionals are hamstrung – desperately waiting on senior policy guidance on AI, while learners eloped ages ago.

Some exam owners, such as ABRSM, are exploring the use of AI-powered systems to quality assure practical performance. But too many times I heard, "We’re waiting on policy...need a position statement first...let’s try train the trainer…". The days of everybody booking a week-long face-to-face training course to figure this out are long gone. 

I applauded Rebecca Bradley’s comment that, ‘Some situations need compassionate leadership when exams don't work...things go wrong with humans and technology." It’s a big ask of exam owners and service providers to place candidates in a stressful and ‘artificial environment’. The cognitive load of performing at their best, while grappling with delivery logistics, often eludes those who claim to be involved with service design. 

Chatting to one delegate, they claimed the uptick in such requests can make delivery contracts logistically and economically untenable. And ameliorating the exam owner’s fears of doing the wrong thing can be stressful. A veteran of school and FE college exams told me it’s a crisis in plain sight. Increasingly, there’s simply not the physical space, logistics, or funds to deliver what is being demanded. Nevertheless, I'm still confident that leading exam owners with great people will make this happen, by conducting full cost reviews, workflow revisions, and even plan full digital transformation of business processes. 

Suppliers can see their contracts becoming commercially untenable as customers load more accommodation requests onto them. Exam owners are terrified of doing the wrong thing and being cancelled.

Thank you and bravo to Peridot for organising the event with help from Kaplan Assessments and Eintech . I appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to share my stories. A day listening to exam folk talk and share their stories always beats a week with a spreadsheet!