Online Assessment and Invigilation at Scale

Description

Each semester, Monash University administers approximately 40,000 exams. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, exams went online and were conducted remotely, with students completing exams at home on their computers. Although students are now increasingly expected to be on campus to sit exams under supervision, the digital aspect has remained and all exams are now completed online. Features of online examination and invigilation include monitoring students via screen recording and using their camera and microphone to record their behaviour and surroundings. Hence, with the shift to online examination comes increased debate about issues such as equity, inclusion, wellbeing, privacy and security.

This project seeks to understand and improve students’ exam experience on measures of equitable access, academic outcomes, and wellbeing with regard to examination and invigilation practices. A central focus is to understand the implications of online examination and invigilation systems on integrity attitudes and behaviours. Key questions are:

1. Does online examination and invigilation enable or hinder students’ performance in exams?
2. How does online examination contribute to, or ameliorate, students’ stress and anxiety about exams and affect their social and emotional wellbeing?
3. What are the factors that influence cheating, or being tempted to cheat, on exams? How can we prevent this and maintain academic integrity?

Benefits and impact

Outcomes from the exam experience project will have local, national and international impact.

• Local impact: The project will provide Monash University with a strong empirical base for strategic decisions and system development, thereby improving student experience and outcomes.
• National and international impact: The project will generate significant data on the implications of online exams and invigilation that can be applied across a range of academic contexts, thereby influencing the field of assessment in education, and the education sector more broadly.

This is Australia’s largest university-wide student exam experience surveys, with nineteen thousand student responses to date. This study offers unique insights into student perspectives and has allowed us to understand the impact of the varied exam conditions — including but not limited to exam security systems such as online proctoring — on student satisfaction and wellbeing, as well as on academic integrity attitudes such as temptation to cheat and self-reported cheating behaviours.

Lead investigators