The Hidden Gap: Students Have Tools—But Do They Know How to Use Them?

What surprised you most about how students used accessibility tools during the assessment?

What surprised us most was how little these tools were used. Even though they were available to all students, many never used them. Across the assessment, tool use was generally quite limited. For example, about two-thirds of students with disabilities did not use TTS at all, and the digital pencil—a tool that lets students write and draw on the tablet—was used by less than ten percent on most math items. These patterns highlight a persistent gap between access and actual use.

We were also struck by the differences in which tools students used. Students with disabilities and English Learners mainly relied on TTS, while higher-achieving students were more likely to use the digital pencil and answer elimination, which helps students rule out incorrect multiple-choice options. This suggests that the students with the greatest need were not always using the tools that most actively support mathematical reasoning.

Your research found that how students use tools matters—not just whether they use them. What did you observe?

A key example is TTS. We found that the way students used TSS mattered much more than a simple yes-or-no indicator of use. Patterns such as how long students listened to the problem statement or toggled the tool on and off were much more predictive of performance. Among students at NAEP’s lowest-achieving level (“below basic”), more sustained engagement with TTS on the problem statement was linked to better performance, though the benefit appeared to level off after about 25 seconds. Among students at the next proficiency level (“basic”), toggling TTS on and off without listening to the full problem was associated with lower accuracy than other TTS use patterns, suggesting that fragmented use may interrupt attention and increase cognitive load.

We saw a similar pattern with the digital pencil, where its benefits depended on both the student and the task. Students without disabilities were more likely to benefit from using the pencil on difficult, multi-step items involving geometric or algebraic reasoning, where it was associated with about a 20% increase in accuracy. Students with learning disabilities, by contrast, appeared to benefit from pencil use more on simpler procedural tasks, where use was associated with about a 26% increase in accuracy. For example, on a multiplication problem of two decimal numbers, both students with learning disabilities and their peers without disabilities were more likely to solve the problem correctly when they used the digital pencil, but students with learning disabilities were much less likely than their peers without disabilities to answer correctly without it. The broader lesson is that tool effectiveness is not one-size-fits-all: What matters is not simply whether students use a tool, but how they use it, when they use it, and for what kinds of tasks.

What is the most important message for teachers, school leaders, and IEP and 504 teams?

First, teach tool use like you teach any problem-solving strategy. Students rarely discover effective tool use on their own. Tool fluency requires modeling, guided practice, and feedback during everyday instruction well before test day. This includes explicitly teaching what each tool is for, when it helps most by task type, and cases when specific tool use will be ineffective, for example, toggling TTS on/off instead of listening fully.

Second, shift from “is it enabled?” to “is it working?” Data on digital tool use such as the NAEP process data can help us evaluate whether a tool was used, how it was used, and whether the usage effectively helped problem-solving. We also hear directly from some students that the TTS reading speed feels slow and unnatural, and that some had never used the digital pencil before the assessment—preferring traditional pencil and paper. Both schools and assessment platform developers should involve students in configuring and refining tools to fit their needs, rather than expecting them to adapt to fixed settings. Co-design builds both comfort and strategic awareness. Effective accessibility is an implementation issue; tools do not work by default.

What schools and districts can do now

• Build short tool routines into instruction. Embed 2- to 5-minute routines in math and ELA lessons: listen to the full prompt with TTS, use the digital pencil to work through the problem, or eliminate one answer choice before deciding. Repetition is important.
• Practice tools in classrooms. Students use tools more effectively when they have practiced during regular classwork, quizzes, and interim assessments.
• Match tool guidance to student need and task type. Students who struggle with reading decoding benefit most from sustained, complete TTS listening, rather than toggling on/off. For the digital pencil, start with procedural tasks for students with learning disabilities and encourage use on complex multi-step problems for all students.
• Consider additional supports for students who rely on TTS. For students who use TTS as a primary access pathway, evaluate whether they also have enough time to listen fully and calmly. Students who feel rushed will shorten listening and use the tool in fragmented ways that undermine its purpose.
• Use process data to personalize accessibility plans. Platform logs capture TTS usage rates, listening duration, usage patterns, and digital pencil use by item type for each student. Reviewing these patterns can help teachers and IEP teams tailor tool instruction and accommodation recommendations beyond eligibility criteria alone.

What assessment platform developers can do

• Design for effective use, not just access. Allow TTS speed adjustment, provide phrase-level chunking with synchronized highlighting, and enable selective replay.
• Co-design with students. Involve students with disabilities and multilingual learners in refining default tool settings. Student input on speed, interface, and feedback leads to tools students will actually use.
• Collect and analyze digital tool-use data. Use the data to understand whether a tool is being used, how students are using it, and whether their usage improved or decreased performance on a task. Patterns found from the data may help design tools and instructions that increase effective usage.
• Provide individual-level usage reports. Share data on tool activation, listening duration, toggling patterns, and digital pencil use by item type, so schools and IEP teams can monitor whether tools are working for each student.