Improving assessment equity using Interactive Oral Assessments

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53761/4hg1me11

Keywords:

interactive oral assessments, equitable assessments, widening participation, assessment for learning, authentic assessment

Abstract

Equity in assessment has been a major issue plaguing the higher education sector for a long time and although efforts have been made to implement a variety of assessments to address this issue, the assessment design tends to ignore the increasingly diverse student population. This article assesses the equity of Interactive Oral Assessments (IOAs) based on the principles of the McCES framework: match, comprehensible, challenge, elicit, and scaffold. Accordingly, the process of designing and administering IOAs is compared with each of the five principles and shows that the assessment environment for students from equity backgrounds is significantly improved. To do this, the data collected from teaching staff and students from a two-year mixed methods research project at a regional university in Australia is used to evaluate the claim. The findings demonstrate that IOAs offer an opportunity to assess students’ learning and clarify their ability to achieve learning outcomes which aligns with the McCES framework; therefore, it is argued that IOAs are an equitable assessment approach. The implications of the findings for academics, students, and educational institutions are significant. For academics, they can be confident that their assessment approach is equitable. For non-traditional students, the chances of succeeding in assessments and improvement in learning are enhanced. For educational institutions, a direct impact on reducing the gap between the performance of mainstream students and non-traditional students in relation to retention, attrition, and successful completions is expected.

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Author Biography

  • Ms Amita Krautloher, Charles Sturt University, Australia

    Amita Krautloher is an Educational Designer in the Division of Learning and Teaching at Charles Sturt University in Australia. She has navigated diverse roles across various industries in Australia and overseas. She is passionate about widening participation in higher education and her research interests include assessment design, equity and inclusion, and the internationalisation of curriculum. She has taken the lead in establishing and guiding the Community of Practice on Interactive Oral Assessments (IOAs) at Charles Sturt, empowering academics to integrate and embed IOAs within their subjects. She has published and presented her research at conferences in Australia and overseas. She is also the co-founder of the Internationalisation of the Curriculum Hub.  Links to her research outputs can be found at https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/persons/amita-krautloher

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Published

2024-03-29

Data Availability Statement

The research data has not been made available to readers.

How to Cite

Improving assessment equity using Interactive Oral Assessments. (2024). Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 21(04). https://doi.org/10.53761/4hg1me11