First Australian exam on computer laptops taken by Year 12 South Australian literary studies students in 2018
The South Australian students taking Australia's first computer exam – in literary studies – were denied access to a spellcheck.
Almost 2,000 Year 12 students in South Australia in 2018 became the first in Australia to sit an end-of-year exam electronically by completing it on laptops.
Students in English literary studies were assessed in a format that reflected how they had been learning all year, as the education system movedwith the times. The students sat the exam, worth 15% of their overall mark, on computers that were locked down to an examination browser to prevent internet access. They also were denied access to a spellcheck tool.
Adelaide High School principal Cez Green said the students were relaxed and confident using the technology in the new setting: "What has changed is this cohort's attitude. Just chatting to them before they went in, they were actually quite relaxed and excited. What I've seen previously, part of the nervousness is actually about using paper and that sense of being in an exam, and this feels different. They can write much faster generally than they can using pen and paper it would be really interesting to interrogate the results."
Professor Martin Westwell said the students took to the test well: "The feedback that we're getting from students through the trials is overwhelmingly positive… electronic exams are really closer to the way in which students are learning today. When we hear about students having to practise handwriting in order to do exams, that seems like the change is overdue”.
Professor Westwell said that, while the exams were a digitised version of the existing paper exam, the assessment board would look at using technology to offer exams in different and better formats. The South Australian Cerificate of Education Board planned to introduce electronic exams for subjects such as modern history and psychology in the following year.