Assessing the impact of format changes: an examination of online versus venue-based summative assessments results at an Open Distance eLearning institution
Keywords:
Summative assessment, formative assessment, performance, Higher Education, Online assessmentAbstract
Increasing technological advancements and the impact of COVID-19, forced universities worldwide to consider online assessments. This study examined this shift focussing on the performance of students within an Open Distance eLearning institution. A retrospective analysis comparing venue-based and online summative assessments, considering year marks' predictive value, age and gender was conducted on 1738 students from 2019 to 2022. Data analysis was executed using R, including lessR for descriptive and ggstatsplot for regression analyses. The results suggest that students' performance remains consistent regardless of the assessment format. Findings indicate that the year mark is a weak predictor of examination success in both online and venue-based assessments. Age and gender did not show a significant contribution to examination success. The findings emphasise the need for further exploration into assessment modes and student perceptions for future pedagogical strategies. This study underscores the evolving landscape of educational assessment, highlighting adaptability and comprehensive analysis for equitable higher education evaluation.
Downloads
References
Allan, S. (2020). Migration and transformation: A sociomaterial analysis of practitioners' experiences with online exams. Research in Learning Technology, 28(4), 341-359. https://doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v28.2279
Al-Qdah, M., & Ababneh, I. (2017). Comparing online and paper exams: Performances and perceptions of Saudi students. International Journal of Information and Education Technology, 7(2), 106-109. https://doi.org/10.18178/ijiet.2017.7.2.850
Arora, S., Chaudhary, P., & Singh, R. K. (2021). Impact of coronavirus and online exam anxiety on self-efficacy: The moderating role of coping strategy. Interactive Technology and Smart Education, 18(3), 475-492. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITSE-08-2020-0158
Brys, G., Hubert, M., & Struyf, A. (2004). A robust measure of skewness. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 13(4), 996-1017. https://doi.org/10.1198/106186004X12632
Butler-Henderson, K., & Crawford, J. (2020). A systematic review of online examinations: A pedagogical innovation for scalable authentication and integrity. Computers and Education, 159, 104024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2020.104024
Büssing, O., Ehlers, J. P., & Zupanic, M. (2021). The prognostic validity of the formative for the summative MEQ (modified essay questions). GMS Journal for Medical Education, 38(6), Doc99. https://doi.org/10.3205/zma001495
Chan, J. C. K., & Ahn, D. (2023). Unproctored online exams provide meaningful assessment of student learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(31). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2302020120
Das, S., Alsalhanie, K. M., Nauhria, S., Joshi, V. R., Khan, S., & Surender, V. (2017). Impact of formative assessment on the outcome of summative assessment: A feedback-based cross-sectional study conducted among basic science medical students enrolled in the MD program. Asian Journal of Medical Sciences, 8(4), 38-43. https://doi.org/10.3126/ajms.v8i4.17161
Domeova, L., Jindrova, A., & Fejfar, J. (2015). Influence of gender and other factors on final grade. International Education Studies, 8(4), 95-103. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v8n4p95
Escudier, M. P., Newton, T. J., Cox, M. J., Reynolds, P. A., & Odell, E. W. (2011). University students' attainment and perceptions of computer-delivered assessment: A comparison between computer-based and traditional tests in a high-stakes examination. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(5), 440-447. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2011.00409.x
Essel, H. B., Butakor, P. K., & Nortey, S. (2019). Summative e-examinations for high-stakes assessment in higher education: A case of undergraduate students at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. Global Journal of Human-Social Science: Arts & Humanities - Psychology, 19(3). https://socialscienceresearch.org/index.php/GJHSS/article/view/2784
Gamage, K. A. A., Pradeep, R. G. G. R., & de Silva, E. K. (2022). Rethinking assessment: The future of examinations in higher education. Sustainability, 14(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063552
Gerbing, D. (2023). Package ‘lessR’. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lessR
Hewson, C. (2012). Can online course-based assessment methods be fair and equitable? Relationships between students' preferences and performance within online and offline assessments. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 28(5), 488-498. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2011.00473.x
Hintze, J. L., & Nelson, R. D. (1998). Violin plots: A box plot-density trace synergism. The American Statistician, 52(2), 181-184. https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.1998.10480559
Ilgaz, H., & Afacan Adan?r, G. (2020). Providing online exams for online learners: Does it really matter for them? Education and Information Technologies, 25(2), 1255-1269. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-019-10020-6
Jarrah, H. Y., Alwaely, S., Darawsheh, S. R., & Alkhasawneh, T. (2022). The difficulty and implementation of online assessment in higher education. Periodicals of Engineering and Natural Sciences, 10(1), 692-699. https://doi.org/10.21533/pen.v10i1.2723
Kenea, T. G., Mikire, F., & Negawo, Z. (2024). The relationship between the psychometric and performance properties of teacher-made tests and students' academic performance in Ethiopian public universities: A baseline survey study. Cogent Education, 11(1), 2298049. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2023.2298049
Khairil, L. F., & Mokshein, S. E. (2018). 21st century assessment: Online assessment. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v8-i1/3838
Khan, M. A., Vivek, V., Khojah, M., Nabi, M. K., Paul, M., & Minhaj, S. M. (2021). Learners' perspective towards e-exams during the COVID-19 outbreak: Evidence from higher educational institutions of India and Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(12), 6534. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126534
Patil, I. (2021). statsExpressions: R package for tidy dataframes and expressions with statistical details. Journal of Open Source Software, 6(61). https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.03236
Rane, V., & MacKenzie, C. A. (2020). Evaluating students with online testing modules in engineering economics: A comparison of student performance with online testing and with traditional assessments. The Engineering Economist, 65(3), 213-235. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013791X.2020.1784336
Simon, J., Jha, M., Leemans, L. J. J., Bilgin, A. A., Jayarathna, L., & Sheard, J. (2022). Online assessment and COVID: Opportunities and challenges. ACE’22: Australian Computing Education Conference, 27-35. https://doi.org/10.1145/3511861.3511865
Smith, G. (2007). How does student performance on formative assessments relate to learning assessed by exams? Journal of College Science Teaching, 36(7).
Still, M. L., & Still, J. D. (2015). Contrasting traditional in-class exams with frequent online testing. Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.14434/jotlt.v4n2.13481
Venables, W., & Smith, D. (2023). An introduction to R: Notes on R: A programming environment for data analysis and graphics. https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.pdf
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Erika Van der Westhuizen, Johan Van Huyssteen
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
For all articles published in IJRBS, copyright is retained by the authors. Articles are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, meaning that anyone may download and read the paper for free. In addition, the article may be reused and quoted provided that the original published version is cited. These conditions allow for maximum use and exposure of the work, while ensuring that the authors receive proper credit.