The importance of accessibility
26 February 2024
Neil Ogden, Subject Advisor, and Lesley Aley, Assessment Standards Senior Manager
In our assessments, we aim to give all students every possibility to show what they know, understand and can do. To achieve this, it is vital that our questions and tasks are clear and easy to understand. In other words, that they are accessible.
An accessible assessment is:
- easy to understand, so students know what they are being asked to do,
- assesses only what is intended to assess,
- fair, as far as is reasonably possible, to all students.
In recent years we’ve been making continual improvements to our question papers and supporting materials (such as inserts, NEA tasks, reference materials, case studies, resource booklets, formulae booklets and pre-release information) to improve their accessibility. We continually review new research, listen to your feedback and carry out our own research, to help make sure that no student is disadvantaged by not being able to access questions or tasks in an assessment.
We’ve developed a set of accessibility principles that inform how we write our assessment materials and develop new qualifications. As well as being based on feedback and research, they have been written in collaboration with relevant organisations, such as BATOD (British Association of Teachers of the Deaf) and Colour Blind Awareness. We continually review these accessibility principles, to ensure they continue to meet the latest research and feedback.
Changes can be seen in formatting, language and context. Below are just some of the things we’re doing to make our assessment materials more accessible.
Formatting
To make our materials easier to read:
| Text will normally be in Arial 11, left aligned and left justified. |
Sans serif fonts (such as Arial) are easier to read and therefore quicker for the reader to process. Size 11 is a comfortable size for most readers. |
| We have started to align all part-questions to the left-hand margin. |
This gives us more space across the page, so that nothing gets squashed. Some readers also find it easier to process text that is consistently aligned against the left-hand margin. |
| We only use italics where the subject requires. |
Italics are difficult for some people to read and also take more cognitive processing than standard type for most people. |
| We generally start each new instruction on a new line. |
Starting each instruction on a new line helps the reader to see how many parts there are to the instructions. This helps to ensure the reader has read and processed them all. |
| We use bold to emphasise key words. |
This helps students to see and process important parts of a question. |
Language
To make our materials as clear as possible:
| We use familiar spoken vocabulary. |
Using language that students are familiar with reduces the cognitive load of reading, so that they can focus on the content being assessed. |
| We limit technical and specialist words to those in the specification, which students are required to know. |
As above. |
| We use short and simple sentences. |
As above. |
| We avoid unnecessary words. |
Unnecessary words increase the reading load and therefore the cognitive load of reading, so we avoid them. |
| We use terminology consistently. |
Using familiar terminology reduces the cognitive load of reading. |
Context
To make our materials as accessible as possible:
| We use contexts that students are likely to be familiar with. |
Some students can worry about contexts that they’re not familiar with in their everyday lives, which can distract them from the question being asked. Using familiar contexts is more accessible to students. |
| We avoid context that is irrelevant to the questions or tasks. |
This reduces the reading and processing load, so that students can better focus on the question or task. |
| We avoid using people’s names or organisation names where possible. |
This reduces distraction for some students, allowing them to better focus on the question or the task. |
| Where we must use people’s names we take them from a set list of equality, diversity and inclusion-approved accessibly written names. |
Accessibly written names are clearly discernible as names, with clear and simple spelling that keeps processing load and distraction to a minimum. Over time, students will see these same names used across subjects, which will increase familiarity and thereby reduce processing load in the live exam. Using names from a wide range of backgrounds ensures that all of our students can recognise themselves and their social circles in the exam, which further increases familiarity and helps with processing. |
Example
The two examples below ask the same question. The second has put some of our accessibility principles into practice. As you can see, the second is much clearer and much easier for students to understand what is required.
Identify two errors that have been made in the development of the prototype displayed,
describing in each case how the error can be corrected by the team.
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Identify two errors in the development of the prototype.
Describe how the team can correct each error.
1. ......................................................................................................................
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2. ......................................................................................................................
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Your feedback
We’re pleased to have heard from you that your students have noticed the improvements so far. We hope you will continue to benefit from these changes to our question papers and other assessment materials.
Over the lifetime of the qualification you might see more small adjustments to the question papers. This is part of continuous improvement, designed to help you and your students. For the most up to date materials, we recommend you look at the most recent set of past papers, where available.
To help us continue to make our materials as accessible as possible, please do continue to provide your feedback to us through methods such as post-exam surveys, as this really helps inform our work, enabling us to offer students the best opportunity to demonstrate what they know, understand and can do.
Stay connected
If you have any questions, you can email us at support@ocr.org.uk, call us on 01223 553998 or message us on X (formerly Twitter) @ocrexams. You can also sign up to subject updates and receive information about resources and support.
About the authors
Neil Ogden has worked in a variety of qualification lead roles at OCR for several years, having joined the Maths team in 2012. Neil led the development of the current GCSE (9-1) Maths qualification (J560) and following its accreditation, most of his time is spent supporting teachers delivering the qualification. Neil also supports a range of OCR’s maths qualifications, as well as regularly publishing to the @OCR_Maths Twitter account. Outside work, Neil enjoys a range of music, theatre and art.
Lesley Aley is an Assessment Standards Senior Manager at OCR.