Observational study reveals emotional distress and digital harms in young children taking baseline tests, highlighting systemic inequalities in early education edtech.
Key Points
To evaluate the embodied responses of young children to the UK Government's digital reception baseline assessment and analyze the harms introduced by standardized early childhood testing interfaces.
Conducted a 2-year qualitative empirical study (2024–2025) across four Reception classes located in diverse socio-economic contexts in England.
Utilized multimodal analysis integrating video observations and field notes to evaluate non-verbal physical gestures, postures, haptics, and spatial positioning during testing.
Pupils exhibited visible signs of emotional and bodily distress—including anxiety, physical tension, self-soothing behaviors, and test refusal—which were notably more pronounced with the 2025 dual-screen, child-facing setup.
Scripted delivery, algorithmic routing, and touchscreen interaction caused digital harms by eroding relational care, misinterpreting pupil competencies, and systematically disadvantaging children with limited digital literacy or English proficiency.
Cite This Study
Roberts‐Holmes et al. (2026) studied this question.