University Language Examinations Ante, Interim, and Post COVID-19: Trapped in the Culture of Trust?

Introduction

Learning, teaching, and assessing have been moving away from traditional classrooms into the online environment rather unobtrusively and haphazardly over the past 20 years. In 2020, COVID-19 brought about an urgent need to instantly transform all face-to-face methods into online formats and thus accelerated the whole transformation process outside the realm of imagination.  As a direct consequence of the COVID-19 restrictions worldwide, online instruction and assessment have been on the increase in most educational institutions, especially tertiary. In an attempt to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on tertiary education, a growing number of studies have investigated the challenges this new situation has posed to teachers and students alike. These explore a variety of topics, from learner academic integrity (Munoz & Mackay, 2019; Holden, Norris & Kuhlmeier, 2021) to student perceptions of onsite and online learning and examining (Elsalem & al, 2021; Graf, Rasmussen and Ruge, 2021; Jaap et al., 2021; Galetić & Herceg, 2022). The latter area, especially student perceptions of language exams conducted online, remains relatively understudied and will therefore be the main focus of this chapter.

The aim of this study is to critically evaluate language testing practices utilized at a Department of English and American Studies in the Czech Republic from the student point of view. The main objective of the mixed method research study is to investigate students’ perceptions concerning different modes of language test administration, face-to-face oral and written examination in supervised conditions in the pre-COVID era and online distant examining in unsupervised conditions. Under supervised conditions, test-takers had no access to the internet other than the Moodle-based exam and two invigilators provided instructions and assistance and eliminated any attempts at cheating. In unsupervised conditions, tests were taken remotely from home, with cameras switched off. The research questions addressed in this study concern students’ overall preferences regarding the two modes of exam administration and their attitudes towards academic integrity when taking exams. The last research question seeks some recommendations for the testing practices currently taking place at the department. The chapter will report the findings of a questionnaire study with 91 research participants, all current students at one of the biggest departments of English and American Studies in the Czech Republic, where the researchers both work as teachers and test developers.  

Language exams at the department consist of two components, written and oral. All exams are developed at the department. For the written component, solely computer-based written exams had been used since 2003 yet always under supervised conditions. When the COVID 19 pandemic broke out, the department was well-prepared to administer the written language exams online. Given the general university policy, which encouraged trust and advised against taking strict security measures in those difficult times not to add stress for the students, the use of web camera supervision or any kind of distant monitoring during exam sittings was decided against. However, there was a noticeable discrepancy in scores between supervised and unsupervised exam sittings. Statistical analysis was carried out and the results showed significant improvement in student scores when taking the written exam unsupervised. This gave rise to questions related to the academic integrity of students and possible cheating.

As far as the oral component is concerned, before COVID-19, face-to-face examining was used. In this proficiency exam, students’ speaking abilities were tested. Since 2020, distant oral examining online through Zoom has been used. The format was slightly adapted to fit the online environment better but even when face-to-face examining became a possibility again, some of the oral proficiency exams at the department remained online.

In this chapter, student perceptions of written and oral language exams administered online in supervised and unsupervised conditions will be explored and differences between the two modes of administration, if any, will be identified. Challenges to academic integrity will also be addressed and students´ preferences and recommendations for improvement will be discussed.