Abstract

Students who are unable to complete an assessment due to circumstances beyond their control (e.g. illness) are often asked to submit a request for special consideration. However, few studies have looked at the reasons why these requests are made, or whether certain students are more likely to submit requests than others. The current study looked at 2126 such requests submitted by 461 students over one academic year and compared students who submitted requests with those who did not on several variables, including gender, full-time/part-time status and undergraduate/postgraduate courses. Distribution of these requests by type (e.g. physical health, bereavement) was examined, in addition to how many students submitted more than one request. The study found that around one-quarter of students submitted requests, with more than half of these related to mental or physical health issues. Full-time students were more likely to submit requests than part-time students although few other demographic differences emerged. The results suggest that some groups may be unevenly affected by special circumstances related to assessment although further work is needed to inform policies regarding special consideration.

摘要

由于无法控制的情况（例如疾病）而无法完成评估的学生通常被要求提交特殊考虑请求。然而，很少有研究研究提出这些请求的原因，或者某些学生是否比其他学生更有可能提交请求。目前的研究调查了 461 名学生在一学年内提交的 2126 份此类申请，并将提交申请的学生与未提交申请的学生比较了几个变量，包括性别、全日制/兼职状态和本科/研究生课程。除了有多少学生提交了多个请求之外，还检查了这些请求按类型（例如身体健康、丧亲之痛）的分布情况。研究发现，大约四分之一的学生提交了申请，其中一半以上与心理或身体健康问题有关。全日制学生比非全日制学生更有可能提交申请，尽管几乎没有出现其他人口统计学差异。结果表明，一些群体可能会受到与评估相关的特殊情况的不均衡影响，尽管需要进一步的工作来为有关特殊考虑的政策提供信息。