Welcome to this Questionmark podcast. Questionmark podcasts bring you news, ideas, and advice about assessments and learning.
Joan Phaup, Questionmark: This is Joan Phaup, and I’m talking today with Alan McCabe, a developer in charge of building Questionmark software. Alan is partially sighted, so he has a particularly strong interest in the issue of assessment accessibility. Hello, Alan. It’s good to be talking with you.
Alan McCabe, Questionmark: Hi Joan. It’s a pleasure to be here today.
Joan: Could you start by giving me some background about the issues surrounding the accessibility of onscreen assessments?
Alan: Sure. Many people have disabilities, and you know they need to be able to take assessments, and there obviously are a wide range of different, different needs that we have. I myself have a visual impairment, so reading things is difficult. The hard of hearing may have trouble with audio content, and there are people who may not be able to, for example, use a mouse to submit the answers to their questions.
Joan: Perhaps you could offer some examples of situations that people with disabilities encounter when they’re taking online assessments.
Alan: For me, the issue is actually reading the content in order to answer the, answer the questions, particularly when a time limit is involved. Other issues, again, are mostly around being able to understand the question material, and then being able to, having the ability to respond appropriately to that question without running over any kind of time limit that the assessment may have on it.
Joan: What do you feel are the most important accommodations that organizations should offer to test takers?
Alan: Well, I think that the companies should be using software that allows disabled and people with special needs to take assessments, that can tailor the assessment to their needs so that they can take part in the assessment, for example, having enlarged screen texts or high-contrast, or replacement audio, or different dynamic content for that particular participant who’s taking the assessment. Having your assessment that’s capable of being read by a screen-reader software, so on screen there’s, there’s text that, of the actual question content, and the screen reader will provide audio to the participant to understand and answer the question. It’s just yeah, all about the customization for an individual participant’s needs, and finding software that can do that can, could be a challenge.
Joan: How has your own experience influenced the accommodations available in Questionmark Perception Version 5?
Alan: Particularly at university, where I took quite a number of online and digital assessments, where there needed to be enlarged fonts and higher contrast templates that particular participants could select, also alternate images, as well, when it wasn’t possible for me to read images. My assessments were mostly for mathematics, and so having text versions of the formulas that were presented would have been useful. Unfortunately the university in question wasn’t using Perception 5, because it didn’t exist then, but we’re in a better place now.
Joan: Well we appreciate all the work you’ve done to bring Questionmark Perception Version 5 to light, and it’s been a pleasure to talk to you today.
Alan: Thank you very much. We hope everyone enjoys Perception 5. We’re certainly very proud of it, and the accessibility features are something that I personally am very happy with, delighted to see going forward.
Joan: Thanks.
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