Oral examinations were often used in the past. In higher education, this method of assessment has decreased in popularity due to concerns about its efficiency and reliability. However, oral exams have many benefits; you can administer them remotely, it is easy to ask follow-up questions, and there is very little risk of fraud in assessing factual knowledge or language proficiency. Do you want to learn more about how to set up oral examinations efficiently? And how you can ensure inclusivity, reliability, validity and transparency? The Faculty of Humanities TLC spoke with lecturers with experience in this area and compiled an oral examinations guide. In this article, you can read about lecturers’ experiences with oral examination.
Read the manual for oral assessment compiled by the Faculty of Humanities here.
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Oral examination of language proficiency
Oral examination of learning outcomes focused on factual knowledge and argumentation
Assessing language acquisition remotely comes with challenges, especially when it comes to fraud. Do you want to know how you can implement oral exams to tackle this? We talked to an expert by experience: Mona Hegazy (Arabic).
Goal: assessing reading skills, understanding and grammar.
Design
Mona and Djûke assessed the students in pairs. The oral exam consisted of three parts: reading, answering questions and translating. The teachers wrote short texts for the exams, based on the grammar and vocabulary covered. In the oral exam, they gave the students a text to read independently. After this, they asked each student to read three sentences out loud. They had to translate these to Dutch and explain the grammatical choices they made. Finally, the students translated Dutch sentences to Arabic. Each pair was given half an hour to complete the exam. Afterwards, the teachers had 10 minutes to decide on a grade.
Quality requirements
During the oral exams, Mona and Djûke were both present. The grades were shared online afterwards.
Experience
The grades corresponded to Mona and Djûkes expectations. Mona greatly values oral examination, but says it is very time-consuming. Oral exams are student-centred, while written assessments provide less freedom. The latter is more representative of the lecturer’s point of view. Mona and Djûke were able to give students more space in the oral exam, for example, by repeating a sentence, giving a second chance when a student has a black-out, etc. Mona thinks both examination methods are suitable to assess whether the student has obtained the learning objectives, as long as the right questions are posed. Therefore, according to Mona, written exams (on-site) would have earned the same grades.
Factual knowledge can be assessed through multiple choice questions, but there is a high risk of fraud if the exam is taken remotely. Oral examinations can offer a solution to this. For courses where application of concepts and argumentation are central, oral examination also offers many advantages. We talked to Nicole Oei and Laurens de Vos about their experiences with oral exams.
Learning outcomes: remembering and understanding.
Design
For this exam, Laurens wrote 40 questions on separate cards, 7 or 8 for each chapter. Each student randomly picked two cards about different chapters. The oral exam had a duration of 15-20 minutes per student. The aim was to assess whether the students were could explain professional terminology such as staging, performativity and intermediality. Grades were shared via Canvas after all the exams had taken place.
Sample question: ‘How does Erving Goffman’s thinking fit within the notion of performativity?’
Quality requirements
Before the exam, students received a number sample questions and clear instructions about the assessment procedure. Laurens was the only lecturer present during the exam, but he made recordings. Because each student had to answer a different, random set of questions, the questions could not be shared.
Experience
Laurens felt the biggest advantage of oral examination was the possibility to ask students follow-up questions.
Learning outcomes: applying, analysing and creating.
Design
The oral exam had a duration of 20 minutes per student. Nicole started with a short introduction and explanation about the procedure, which was followed by some questions about the learning objectives. Nicole shared the grade with students during the exam itself. According to Nicole, this prevents discussion about the grade afterwards.
Quality requirements
Before the exam students received sample questions, and the assessment procedure was explained during a lecture. In addition, she developed a rubric based on the learning objectives. That way, it was clear to the students what they were being assessed on.
Before the exam, Nicole developed multiple case questions, which allowed for different combinations of target groups and themes. The case question was, for example: “Due to the pandemic many (target group (x)) are stressed, and worry about (theme (y)).” Target group (x) could be, for example: elderly, health care workers, singles or youth. Theme (y), could be: loneliness, less exercise, unhealthy habits or concerns about the future.
Next, two application questions were asked about this composed case, namely:
Experience
Nicole was very positive about oral examinations, instead of written: she thinks it is harder to grade written exams, as well as more time-consuming. Students often write long, meandering answers, and handwriting is often unclear. According to Nicole, it is important to make sure the oral exam does not count heavily towards the final course grade, as this is stressful for students. However, she does not feel that oral exams are more stressful for students, as written exams can also be very stressful. Students also felt positively about their oral exams; they felt recognised and seen by the lecturer and agreed with their grades. One of Nicole’s students wrote: “I think that the forced oral exams as a result of the pandemic actually were beneficial in the way that you have to know the knowledge really well if you prepare to actually talk about it.”