Ofqual has been warned that on-screen assessments could widen attainment gaps between disadvantaged students and their peers.
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), responding to the exams watchdog’s consultation on digital exams, also says that Ofqual should only introduce digital exams once evidence has been gathered on the potential impact on disadvantaged students.
Writing for Tes last year, chief regulator Sir Ian Bauckham said the watchdog was “examining how digital options might be introduced carefully and selectively”.
The EEF says that within this “controlled approach”, Ofqual should assess how disadvantaged students would be affected.
Risk of ‘widening gaps’
In its written response, the EEF advises that edtech interventions can have “a small positive impact” for disadvantaged students, but that their peers may benefit more from a rollout - so the net result is potentially “widening gaps”.
The EEF finds that “potential learning gains....may be comparatively lower for disadvantaged pupils and students than for their more affluent peers”.
The non-profit organisation also warns that students’ access to digital devices and their familiarity with them could also have an impact on success in on-screen assessments.
Referencing a 2025 Ofcom report into media usage among children and parents, the EEF says some students’ lack of access to devices at home may “exacerbate attainment gaps that emerge in school” as a result of the use of edtech.
The EEF states: “There is some evidence that affluent students are more likely to be familiar with devices in a way that promotes their success in on-screen exams.”
It points to “some evidence that computer familiarity is linked to socioeconomic status and could potentially exacerbate gaps in exam performance”.
The EEF response comes after the government promised to “halve the disadvantage gap” in the recent schools White Paper.
In 2025 Tes revealed that disadvantaged students were at least twice as likely to drop out of A levels as to get the top grade in a number of subjects. And recent analysis by John Jerrim, UCL Institute of Education professor of education and social statistics, and Maria Palma Carvajal, UCL postdoctoral investigator, found that disadvantaged white students fall furthest behind after primary school.
The EEF advises Ofqual that it should “carefully consider” existing evidence on the impact of digital exams on disadvantaged students before pushing ahead with on-screen assessment.
“Our overarching focus is that any move towards on-screen assessments should have no detrimental impact on disadvantaged pupils,” it says.
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