The Increasing Incidence of Special Consideration Cases at University

This paper examines the growth of special consideration requests for examinations at Macquarie University in Sydney between 1979 and 1993. There has been a disturbing increasing trend in recent years, particularly in the quantitative areas, and a profile of the type of student submitting such requests is undertaken. If requests are considered as a proportion of students enrolled, then the figures for 1993 suggest that there is a particular serious problem with students studying on overseas visas who tend to have a request rate up to triple that of local students while permanent residents also have a request rate up to 60% higher. Special consideration requests for examinations tend to be submitted by younger students who are studying full‐time and the rate for females is consistently higher than that for males.