Inclusive Assessment Design for Neurodiverse Students in Multidisciplinary Programs

Amelia Rowan

Inclusive Assessment Design for Neurodiverse Students in Multidisciplinary Programs

Author(s)	Dr. Amelia Rowan
Country	United States
Abstract	The expansion of neurodiversity within higher education has intensified the need to reconsider how academic assessment is designed, interpreted, and implemented across multidisciplinary programs. Conventional assessment systems frequently depend on timed examinations, extended written responses, compulsory presentations, inflexible group tasks, implicit performance expectations, and standardized modes of demonstrating knowledge. Although such practices may appear academically neutral, they can introduce construct-irrelevant barriers for students whose cognitive processing, executive functioning, communication, sensory regulation, attention, literacy, or social-interaction patterns differ from dominant expectations. Rather than treating inclusion primarily as an individual accommodation provided after a student discloses a diagnosis, the proposed model adopts a proactive design perspective informed by Universal Design for Learning, construct validity, accessibility, assessment transparency, learner agency, and neurodiversity-affirming pedagogy. The study employs a structured conceptual synthesis of contemporary scholarship and a scenario-based assessment-design analysis. The scenario analysis indicates that proactive redesign can substantially strengthen accessibility and flexibility while preserving disciplinary standards and authentic learning outcomes. Importantly, inclusive assessment is not conceptualized as lowering academic expectations; instead, it aims to remove demands that are unrelated to the competence being assessed. The paper further argues that multidisciplinary programs require particular attention because students may encounter sharply different assessment conventions across disciplines, increasing uncertainty and executive demands. The proposed framework therefore emphasizes consistent assessment communication, bounded choice, equivalent evidence standards, accessible group-work structures, multimodal demonstration of learning, staged feedback, and meaningful student participation in assessment design. The study offers a practical and theoretically grounded model that institutions can subsequently evaluate through participatory empirical research with neurodivergent students.
Keywords	neurodiversity; inclusive assessment; higher education; Universal Design for Learning; neurodivergent students; multidisciplinary education; assessment accessibility; learner variability; equitable assessment; student agency
Field	Engineering
Published In	Volume 1, Issue 2, March-April 2020
Published On	2020-04-20

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American Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Inclusive Assessment Design for Neurodiverse Students in Multidisciplinary Programs

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