Remote Assessment in Higher Education during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Universities have made a compulsory shift to distance education due to the Covid-19 pandemic. All of the higher education instutitions in Turkey have completed 2019-2020 Spring semester using online tools. However, most of these institutions were not fully-prepared to have all of their courses online. Technical inadequencies, lack of qualified online tools, inexperience of instructors and students in distance education have emerged as major issues that instutitions have to face. In addition to all, a new question arised; which approaches will be used for assessment. This study aimed to seek the common assessment approaches used through pandemic, how students perceived the quality of the assessment and the pros and cons of using these practices. Additionally, we examined whether participants’ perceptions about quality of the assessment differ according to interaction with faculty members and use of online tests. Researchers employed survey design to reply four research questions and used a three-part instrument to collect qualitative and quantitative data. 486 students from 61 universities voluntarily participated in the study. Results indicated assignments are the mostly used tools and students are generally satisfied about the quality of the assessment practices. Another result is that students who interact with faculty members are more satisfied with the quality of the assessment practices. This emphasizes the importance of formative assessment and feedback in remote assessment. Further, students who took online tests are more satisfied with the quality of assessment. Suggestions were made for future research.Universities have made a compulsory shift to distance education due to the Covid-19 pandemic. All of the higher education instutitions in Turkey have completed 2019-2020 Spring semester using online tools. However, most of these institutions were not fully-prepared to have all of their courses online. Technical inadequencies, lack of qualified online tools, inexperience of instructors and students in distance education have emerged as major issues that instutitions have to face. In addition to all, a new question arised; which approaches will be used for assessment. This study aimed to seek the common assessment approaches used through pandemic, how students perceived the quality of the assessment and the pros and cons of using these practices. Additionally, we examined whether participants’ perceptions about quality of the assessment differ according to interaction with faculty members and use of online tests. Researchers employed survey design to reply four research questions and used a three-part instrument to collect qualitative and quantitative data. 486 students from 61 universities voluntarily participated in the study. Results indicated assignments are the mostly used tools and students are generally satisfied about the quality of the assessment practices. Another result is that students who interact with faculty members are more satisfied with the quality of the assessment practices. This emphasizes the importance of formative assessment and feedback in remote assessment. Further, students who took online tests are more satisfied with the quality of assessment. Suggestions were made for future research.