Time is On Your Side: A Discussion of Universal Extended Time in Assessments (Part 3 with Lesley Ellis and Rowan Shaw)

Transcript – Rowan Shaw & Lesley Ellis 

Jiexing 

Welcome to the ‘Let’s Talk About Teaching’ podcast, a podcast dedicated to exploring innovative teaching practices in post-secondary education, examining the day-to-day challenges of implementing and uncovering strategies for success. If you have been following us since our earlier ‘Teach Anywhere’ podcast episodes, welcome back. We’re excited to broaden the conversation and to continue sharing stories and insights from educators that inspire reflection and growth. My name is Jiexing Hu, I’m a Learning Designer with Learning and Teaching, Support and Innovation, also known as LTSI at the University of Victoria. My pronouns are she and her. 

Sarah 

I am your co-host, Sarah De Decker, and my pronouns are she and her. I am a Curriculum Specialist in STEM at LTSI. Before we begin, we would like to acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory the university stands, and the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. 

Jiexing 

In this 3-episode podcast series, ‘Time is on Your Side’. We explore Universal Extended Time in assessments as a tool to enhance accessibility and inclusivity at UVic. This series will bring together multiple guests over 3 episodes to talk about their experiences and perspectives on Universal Extended Time. We will explore the pedagogical benefits, practical challenges, and how it’s being used at UVic in fostering equitable and inclusive assessment practices. 

Sarah 

In this 3rd and final episode of our ‘Time Is On Your Side’ podcast series, we are joined by Rowan Shaw, Associate Director of UVic’s Centre for Accessible Learning, and Lesley Ellis, Curriculum Specialist in Inclusion and Access within the division of Learning and Teaching, Support and Innovation. Rowan and Lesley share their knowledge of why and how Universal Extended Time expands accessibility for students and relevant considerations. 

Jiexing  

Hello Lesley and Rowan. Welcome to the podcast. 

Lesley 

Thank you for having me today.  

Rowan 

Yeah, thanks. 

Sarah 

Thank you for joining us today, Lesley and Rowan. Before we start chatting about Universal Extended Time, could you tell us a bit more about yourself? Perhaps share how long you’ve been in your current role and what you do in your work. Rowan, would you like to get us started first? 

Rowan 

My name is Rowan. Uh, my pronouns are he and him, and I’m the associate director of the Centre for Accessible Learning on campus here. I’ve been in the role, to think back since 2019, pre-pandemic seems like forever ago, and I’ve been working in the area of accessibility and post-secondary since 2011. 

Lesley 

Thank you, Sarah. My name is Lesley. I use she and her pronouns. So, I actually began at LTSI just in January of 2024. It’s a new role that’s been created to support the integration of accessible pedagogy at UVic. So, I’m really excited to be on campus, and I have a background in Disability Studies. I’ve been working in disability advocacy for, I think, over 12 years now, previously at the University of Washington in Seattle. 

Jiexing  

Thank you, Rowan and Lesley. I have the first question for you. Could you give us an overview of what Universal Extended Time is and how it’s supposed to increase accessibility for students? Lesley, would you like to take this one first? 

Lesley 

Sure, thanks, Jiexing. Universal Extended Time is an access centered assessment application that seeks to reduce access barriers created by time restricted assessments and increase overall accessibility for all students. Applying Universal Extended Time appropriately requires an accurate measurement of the assessment’s timing, the total time it will take for the student to complete the assessment, and then applying a calculated extension to that time, most commonly 1.5 or 2 times, which are in similar methods to extended time accommodations. Now this time is applied to all students taking the assessments, so Universal Extended Time is really about enhancing accessibility for all students. As we know, time is an ever-present variable in how a student approaches an assessment, so restricting time to an extent that students are required to complete the assessment at a fast pace can increase stress and anxiety and actually impede a student’s ability to demonstrate the knowledge, competency and skills that the assessment is asking them to share. Research shows Universal Extended Time supports a diverse range of learners, not just those who have time as an access barrier to educational opportunities.  

Jiexing 

Thank you, Lesley. Rowan, would you like to add to that? 

Rowan 

Yeah, maybe I’ll, I’ll speak to the idea of barriers to access really quickly, disability related barriers to access, because that’s, that’s really the focus of our office over in the Centre for Accessible Learning. So, when a student becomes registered with our office, we go through a process of taking a look at the disability, the diagnosis of a disability or chronic health condition that a student has, the functional impacts, which some people might understand as symptoms, but the functional impacts of that disability or chronic health condition. And then the interaction between those functional impacts and the course of study that a student is taking. So, it could be like broadly their course of study, it could be a particular course, it could be a course element within a course, and if those uh functional impacts negatively interact with those course requirements, um, or course elements, that forms a disability related barrier to access. And the academic accommodation that gets put in place, that forms part of a student’s academic accommodation plan, that is really meant to mitigate that disability related barrier that exists for students with disability or chronic health conditions in our academic environments. So, when we talk about Universal Extended Time, we’re talking about, as it relates to students with a disability, the mitigation of those barriers that exist. So, you have a, you know, for example, a student with a chronic health condition that requires some kind of management throughout the day, including the time that a student might be writing an assessment. So maybe they need to take 5 or 10 minutes in the middle of an assessment to manage the impacts of their disability or chronic health condition. An accommodation would allow them to go for 5 or 10 minutes and manage those symptoms or functional impacts of the disability or chronic health condition. Um, and without the accommodation, they’re going to have 5 or 10 minutes less time than everybody else because they’re in the middle of their assessment going to need to be managing the impacts of their condition. So again, as it relates to disability, Universal Extended Time kind of builds that time in so uh a student alongside the other students in their class can not experience that disability related barrier in the assessment. One of the things that we want to make sure that Universal Extended Time isn’t doing is either shifting the inequality that exists or creating an additional barrier to access for students with a disability. The other thing that I think is really important to articulate, and you were kind of getting at this, Lesley, in your response, I think, is that this isn’t just about students with a disability. There are barriers to access that exists across all sorts of different student cohorts that can show up in assessments that can show up in specifically time-limited assessments and Universal Extended Time allows for a simple way for instructors to consider how they can mitigate the barriers to access that a broad number of student groups might experience. 

Jiexing 

That’s great, thank you. 

Sarah 

What are some common perceptions or misperceptions you’ve encountered regarding Universal Extended Time, Lesley? 

Lesley 

So, one of the misconceptions that I hear from faculty instructors and students as well is the sort of assumption or perception that by increasing time within an assessment that you’re reducing the academic rigor of the assessment, that you’re making it easier for students. And one of the questions that we always ask faculty and instructors when they implementing it, is time a factor that you’re measuring as part of the assessment? And for some disciplines, for some areas, absolutely, time is an essential factor and they need to include that is what they’re measuring within the assessment. However, for a significant portion of assessments that happened here at UVic, time isn’t what the faculty and instructor is measuring. They’re measuring the students’ learning, they’re measuring the students’ knowledge, they’re measuring the student’s skill. So, by increasing time, you’re not really reducing the academic rigor or the quality of the assessment. You’re merely allowing the student to have the capacity to have the reduction of barriers as Rowan was speaking to, to be able to fully demonstrate what they’ve learned in the course. I think there’s some of the older traditional pedagogical approaches perceived assessments as competition or a way for students to be sort of demonstrating I’ve mastered the skill the best as possible, and I think we’re shifting away from that and really students are in competition with one another with how much they’ve prepared for the assessment, how much they’ve engaged with the course and and engaged with learning, and really that’s what the faculty or instructor is trying to measure. And so, I think we’re shifting away from this, the idea of timed assessments being the ultimate measurement of a student’s learning and skills, and as Rowan was alluding to, the amount of barriers students can experience in an assessment are considerable, and the variables that they have on the day of the assessment are also considerable. You look at, you know, there, we see students sort of as a whole person, so they’re bringing, you know, their family life, their personal life, whether they’ve slept well the night before, whether they’ve had something to eat. There are so many factors that contribute to how a student will perform on an assessment. So, by allowing additional time, we’re really acknowledging that these are full human beings who have come to take the assessment and those will be factors in how they’re able to perform on it. 

Sarah 

Thank you for sharing that, Lesley. Is there anything you’d like to add uh Rowan to that conversation? 

Rowan 

I was actually hoping to ask a question of Lesley, if I can. You started off talking about there are some disciplines or courses, that that’s my language not yours, where absolutely you are measuring the how long it’s taking somebody to complete the task. Can you go a little bit further and tell me about kind of what, what you, where you see that being an important part and because I think one of the things that, that, that I see in my interaction with instructors and some of the interactions that take place um between our office and and others at the institution are really understanding time as an important factor. Maybe in areas where I, I don’t really see the direct connection. 

Lesley 

I think there’s some very specific discipline specific areas where faculty and instructors will be very vocal about time being an essential element, but I think there’s also a portion where this is how we’ve done it for a long time, and this is how I’ve measured student skills within a restricted time assessment. And so, this is how I’ve been measuring it, and we haven’t really shifted away from that very core belief in higher education pedagogy. We know, you know, up until 2016 students were taking provincials here in the province of BC, and these provincials were high stakes, restricted time assessment exams. Many students, of course, with disabilities would have had some accommodations in relation to taking it, but all students were required to take it in order to apply and get into post-secondary. So, I think there’s this, there’s a deep-seated tradition and historical sort of relevance to timed assessments that I think instructors hold onto quite closely. And I think sometimes they see being able to do it within a certain time frame demonstrates a greater mastery of that, and I think that’s being challenged in different circles. You know, there’s a great quote. “There’s not often a substantial linear relationship between how long an examinee takes to complete the test and the accuracy of their answers.” 1 So, it’s really about challenging that idea that if you have a longer amount of time they are going to all of a sudden produce or be able to recall knowledge that you learned during the course, I think that’s really being challenged because we know that that that may not be the case, particularly for things like multiple choice exams where, you know, there’s only a limited amount of cognitive thinking that’s going to be going on with answering the exam. And I think also it relates to when even within like a long answer or short answer essay assessment, so one of the things we always suggest is make sure that you have very specific parameters for what you’re expecting the students to produce during the assessment to ensure equity, as you were mentioning previously. So, one student can’t write a 5-page paper, and one student can’t write a 10-page paper, so the parameters are the same, but for some students writing is going to take longer because there’s an access barrier there, and for some students it’s going to take less time. But if you have very specific parameters around that, then you can reduce the inequity that may be produced. 

Rowan 

I really appreciate uh you underlining those thoughts there, and I think it’s really important for, for uh, all the listeners who are instructors to consider that. And, you know, I do want to make sure that we are highlighting that yes, there are logistical limitations that that exist and,  you know, we’re all of us sitting around this table here I think are aware and and those need to be kind of, you know, understood and and respected and considered I guess in this conversation, so let’s articulate that. So, I get going back to the question of uh common perceptions or misperceptions. I think that one of the misperceptions that I hear is that there’s an equivalency to academic accommodation when somebody’s implementing Universal Extended Time. And in a way, there is, but I think that it, that’s an oversimplification of what’s going on. So, you know, academic accommodation is this four step process that uh goes from, you know, a disability or chronic health diagnosis to functional impacts to academic barriers to an accommodation. If that academic barrier doesn’t exist, there isn’t a need for an accommodation, so equating the idea of a barrier free academic task to meeting an academic accommodation requirement, just there, there are two kind of separate spheres here of idea I guess that that we’re talking about. 

Jiexing 

Thanks, Rowan. So, Lesley, from your experience, what kind of concerns do faculty have when implementing Universal Extended Time? 

Lesley 

Thanks Jiexing. I think one of the main things I want to mention with this is I talked a little bit about sort of historically dominant pedagogical models, and one of those models is the time that instructors and faculty have for administering assessments. And at UVic we are very conscious LTSI and and everyone in leadership at UVic is very conscious that many faculty and instructors, frankly do not have the time to implement Universal Extended Time within their courses, they want to, we speak with them and they say I would love to do this, but I simply, I have a 50 minute class. If I want to do a midterm or an in-class assessment, it’s virtually impossible for me to sort of measure any sort of part of the learning that I’d like to measure. And so, it’s a real structural institutional barrier that we’re very aware of and it’s something that I think it’s frustrating for instructors to hear, you know, all the the sort of ways to promote the idea of Universal Extended Time and then the realities of it can be dramatically different and I know this is, this is true across many faculties. So, we definitely want to acknowledge that that’s one of the major concerns we hear from faculty and instructors. So, there is a will to support access center pedagogy and increase the time for assessments, but there are still some very restrictive parameters for that, particularly for large classes you have to do some of the high stakes assessments within the exam period, for example. So, it’s very hard for them to reduce their assessment. To an amount where they can add extended time and also feel they are adequately assessing the knowledge that they’ve taught over the course of the semester. So, I think it’s a really valid point and something that will be an ongoing dialogue that we have to have as a community at UVic about how we can support its implementation in broader ways. That’s one of the main concerns that I’ve heard. I also, of course, going back to the previous question here, the concern about equity. And ensuring that um so if I provide this to all the students, what about the students that have an academic accommodation of extended time? Am I also meeting or am I being equitable in what I’m supplying for those students and LTSI we’re really clear of the considerations that need to be made when implementing it and one of those is to directly communicate and review the specific accommodations for extended time of students in their course so that it’s not just as Rowan was saying, it’s not a blanket coverage for their or blanket meeting their accommodation. So, it’s definitely something that we hear are concerned about, which is good because it means that they’re looking at it from multiple perspectives and acknowledging that it’s not a one size fits all access centered pedagogical strategy. I think it’s sort of a lot of nuanced conversations with faculty and instructors about, you know, the size of their class, what kind of assessment they want to administer, whether it really is equitable for their students, and all these issues are, you know, something that you do have to look at when you, when you want to implement it and LTSI is really happy to have those conversations with faculty and instructors and really look, you know, detailed at the assessment and to support them in getting the accurate time of the assessment, for example, can be a real challenge as well. I think especially for assessments that have been used over and over again. So, is this really an accurate measurement of how long it takes or have I been standardizing it based on sort of the idea of an average or normal student? Which we really contest the idea of that at this point and so I think those are all, you know, sort of the major concerns that we hear from faculty and instructors, some of which we can answer and some of which unfortunately we can’t answer, but we do appreciate having a dialogue with them and learning of their interest in it so that that we can further, you know, move the needle to an access center campus, which is what UVic’s goal ultimately is and find ways that we can, we can keep doing that. 

Sarah 

Thanks. That was very insightful. Rowan, could you share a success story where Universal Extended Time made a significant impact on accessibility? 

Rowan 

I’ve spoken to instructors that have said, hey, this worked really well, and I’ve spoken to students that are really happy to be writing with the class because they can do that now and have access to the course instructor during the assessment instead of being segregated in a separate space, which would be used for provision of extra time or distraction reduction or a private room or what whatever it is. So yes, that exists. I also think though it’s important to step back from students with a disability or chronic health condition to say, you know, I, I bet you that if we were to ask students in these classrooms where Universal Extended Time has been implemented in a considered way, they’ll also report that they’re having a better experience with their assessments or positive outcomes. I think it’s important to to just remind everybody this isn’t just about students with a disability, this is not just about meeting accommodation requirements, um, it’s about mitigating all sorts of different barriers that students might experience disability related or not. But if I’m gonna focus in on like a success story around UET. I’m going to say this, for years in the assessment program that operates under the umbrella of the Centre for Accessible Learning, for many years we never received any requests for Universal Extended Time. This term, over 16% of the invigilation requests that have come in from course instructors have included a note saying this is a Universal Extended Time assessment and I’m providing 1.5 times or 1.25 times Universal Extended Time for everybody. And then we make the calculations based on the students accommodation, whether there would be additional time allotted to them because they have an extra time accommodation that goes above and beyond the Universal Extended Time or not, but almost 17%, which is, you know, 1 in 6 in invigilation requests is coming in with instructors who are trying out Universal Extended Time in their classrooms. I think, uh, this is a, this is a strong step in that in that access centered direction that we want to be heading. And we need to collect feedback from students. We need to be transparent about the process that we’re undertaking to get to these Universal Extended Time, uh, structures that that we’re, that we’re, you know, or assessments that we’re ultimately put setting in front of students, and we need to iterate based on the feedback that that students are providing. But the first step is giving it a shot, and that’s what’s happening here. And that’s a really good, good news story. 

Lesley 

I just wanted to add one of the other concerns that I do hear from instructors is, oh, ‘but they didn’t use all the time, I gave them all this time and they didn’t use it’. And in the research that I’ve read and what I’ve heard directly research from students and from instructors and faculty is that just because they didn’t use the time doesn’t mean they didn’t need the time. And actually Universal Extended Time is predominantly used to reduce anxiety and stress for students in taking the assessment, also to be able to have the time to take it, but reducing the anxiety and stress is a central factor in that. And so just because they didn’t use the time doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good pedagogical strategy to use. It actually meant that they were relaxed, that the assessment was adequately timed and assessed for how long it would take, and so that can be really a positive measurement rather than instructors thinking, well, I must have just given them too much time or it wasn’t rigorous enough. 

Jiexing 

Thank you, Lesley. That’s a great one. OK, Lesley and Rowan, thanks so much for having this conversation and sharing your insights with us. 

Lesley 

Thank you for having me today. 

Rowan 

Thank you very much. Uh, this has been a really good conversation and uh I hope it’s one that continues across campus. 

Jiexing 

Thank you for tuning in. This concludes our 3-episode podcast series ‘Time is On Your Side’, exploring Universal Extended Time from multiple UVic perspectives. We hope the conversations we have shared have proven interesting and useful. Make sure to visit our Teach Anywhere website at Uvic.ca/teachanywhere, where you can learn more about teaching and learning at UVic. We will talk to you again soon. 

• Hosts: Sarah DeDecker & Jiexing Hu
• Guests: Lesley Ellis & Rowan Shaw 
• Technical Production: Jiexing Hu, Sarah DeDecker & Lesley Ellis 
• Transcript Preparation: Jiexing Hu, Sarah DeDecker & Lesley Ellis 
• Theme music: “freesound1.wav” by freezound5 (https://freesound.org/people/freezound5/sounds/588258/) and “sonically_sound.wav” by freezound5 (https://freesound.org/people/sonically_sound/sounds/624643/). Available for use under the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication at freesound.org.