Conference Program

Higher education institutions continue to show inequalities through assessment practices, pedagogical accommodations and institutional norms that define legitimate forms of participation and learning (Davis 2013; Dolmage 2017). Within higher education, neurodivergent students are frequently supported through compensatory accommodations, such as extra time, separate rooms or reduced distraction environments, rather than through structural transformations of assessment design and educational spaces (Nieminen 2022; Tai, Ajjawi & Umarova 2021). While these measures aim to facilitate participation, they remain embedded in normative assumptions about attention, productivity and appropriate academic behaviour, reflecting broader processes of normalisation and addressing diversity of neurodivergent student cohorts (Campbell 2009).

Different disability studies and spatial theory emphasise that space is not neutral but actively shapes belonging, participation and inclusion (Ahmed 2012). Yet the spatial organisation of assessment (e.g. examination halls, quiet rooms, or separate spaces) remains overlooked within inclusive assessment research. These spatial dynamics structure how students inhabit academic environments and how they are positioned in relation to institutional norms, often producing microsegregations that subtly redefine legitimacy and belonging (Wong 2024; BartPlange et al. 2025). For neurodivergent students, whose sensory, cognitive and affective experiences are deeply shaped by environmental conditions, assessment spaces can function simultaneously as supports and barriers. Large exam halls may amplify sensory overload, anxiety or attentional challenges, while separate rooms may reduce these pressures but raise feelings of difference, visibility or institutional othering.

This empirical paper draws on qualitative data from focus groups with neurodivergent students at University College Cork, conducted as part of the Inclusive Assessment Project at UCC, funded by the Irish Higher Education Authority, that aims to adopt a whole-of-institution approach to inclusive assessment.

The research sought to understand how neurodivergent students navigate assessment spaces, the expectations of assessment spaces and emotional responses to spatial conditions. Participants were asked how space directly shaped their capacity to engage meaningfully with assessment tasks, and the spatial characteristics that enable a sense of belonging or created feelings of non-belonging. The findings reveal that assessment spaces are not neutral backgrounds but active in shaping learning, participation and identity. They can enable or constrain students’ ability to demonstrate knowledge, influence their confidence and self-perception, and affect their relationship with the institution and their peers.

By emphasising the lived experiences of neurodivergent students within UCC’s assessment infrastructure, the paper argues that rethinking assessment through a spatial lens is essential for moving beyond compensatory models of inclusion. By integrating insights from inclusive assessment, Universal Design for Learning and spatial justice in assessment, it argues that meaningful educational justice requires transforming not only assessment formats and design but also the material and spatial conditions under which assessment takes place (Hamraie 2017).