Extended Exam Time Has a Minimal Impact on Disparities in Student Outcomes in Introductory Physics

Disparities in student outcomes are widespread in introductory physics courses and are often largest in timed, multiple-choice, high-stakes exams. Recognizing that reducing time pressure for students is a small, structural change that could have large impacts on student performance and reduce disparities in student outcomes, we offered all 596 students in our introductory physics course a 50% extension in test-taking time. We made careful comparisons of student performance to historical data, across demographic groups, and across time usage on the exams using both raw exam scores and a "Better Than Expected" measure that compares student performance in the course under study to their own performance in other courses. While students overall scored slightly higher with extended exam time, we found that extended time did not reduce the well-established disparities in student outcomes categorized by sex, race/ethnicity, or college generation status present in our introductory physics course. These findings both indicate that extending exam time is not a simple fix for disparities in student outcomes and reinforce that systemic changes towards more authentic assessments of STEM knowledge and capabilities are imperative.