Principles of effective assessment

The principles of an effective assessment remain the same for any type of assessment conducted either traditionally, blended, or via online mode -reliability, validity, feasibility, and educational impact.^[6] There has to be an alignment between the assessment methods, teaching-learning strategies, and objectives. Students learning experiences can be improved by evidence-informed assessments.^[7]

Methods of online assessment

Students can be assessed by several methods online. All the reviewed methods in the literature may not be feasible, hence the teacher should decide which may be practically applicable to achieve the learning outcomes. Also, alignment with learning outcomes, the availability of supporting staff, administrative requirements, student workload, expert technical team, etc should be considered while designing the online assessments.

Factors influencing the selection of online tools

a. Objectives of the course(domain, level).

Few examples of choosing the correct online assessment strategy based on the domains, skills to be tested are given in [Table 1].

Online assessments -recommendations

a. The assessments have to be planned and designed at the beginning of the academic year. ^[8] c. Instructions for the assessment and all the checklists and rubrics need to be very clear and complete.^[9] d. A discussion board can be created for students to clarify their questions.e. Different types of assessment can be used to check the understanding of the students.^[10]f. For deeper engagement of students, case studies, patient videos, simulations, or other resources can be provided.^[11] g. After the completion of the assessment, constructive feedback has to be provided to the students.^[12] h. Proper planning should be done to maintain academic integrity. The same has to be discussed with the students.^[13] i. In case of technical issues, a backup or contingency plan for submitting or completing the assignments should be ready.^[14]

Anticipated challenges

a. Students' can post unrelated content to the actual conversation.^[15] b. Peer pressure among a few students.^[16] c. Few students may not accept comments on their posts.^[10] d. Few students may not provide feedback or comments.

Suggestions

a. To keep the students stay focused on the course content and build interpersonal relationships with colleagues, continuous discussions should be maintained throughout the course.^[15]c. Personalized feedback to the students can be provided on how to make their discussion points effective.^[10]d. Word limits can be set for each post so that the posts are more manageable and students can make their points clearer. This may prevent the students from writing and reading long discussion posts.^[16] e. To encourage participation and engagement, students can be rotated as facilitators or any other roles.^[17] f. Appropriate grades have to be allocated to the discussion board so that the students prioritize them. The workload of grading can be reduced by asking the students to have a self-assessment, select the best discussion posts and the student explain why they chose these posts.

Challenges

a. Student copying.^[18] c. Time-consuming to develop, test, implement, and provide feedback for multiple-choice quizzes.

Suggestions

a. Continuous assessment employing the online quiz with detailed feedback will engage the students with the course content.^[19] b. Practice tests can be given on the LMS before attempting the actual quiz so that the students can familiarize themselves with the software and any challenges can be addressed.^[20] c. Peer review of the questions should be done by a co-instructor, so that there is no ambiguity in the framing of the questions, as the students cannot seek clarification as they would normally do in traditional assessment methods.^[9]d. To prevent cheating, security features such as pooling of questions, randomization of the question order, and answers have to be enabled in the LMS.^[18]e. To assess the higher-order thinking skills, case-based/problem based /videos/simulations/reflections can be added at the end of the quiz.^[11], ^[21]f. To prevent any technical glitch, more than one attempt can be allowed and the highest score can be included in the final grade.

Challenges

a. It may be difficult for students, who struggle with typing on the computer.^[12] b. It can be time-consuming, to provide feedback to each student.c. The grading process can be delayed as the essays/projects require a lot of time for evaluation.

Suggestions

a. Word limits can be set to write essays so that the students can provide the required information.^[6] b. The essays can be posted as blogs or discussion posts so that the students can interact and learning happens.c. Timely feedback can improve the writing process. The feedback should focus on the process and the product.^[12]d. Adequate time has to be provided so that the written assignments/projects are done promptly.^[24] e. The available junior faculty have to be adequately trained in using the rubrics effectively so that the workload can be shared.

Challenges

a. The purpose of creating an ePortfolio may not be completely understood by the students.^[26] b. If the e-learning platforms are not user friendly, the students may experience stress.^[27] c. Sometimes the ePortfolios can be distressing to the students and they may feel stressed about the workload in preparing it.^[28]

Suggestions

a. The ePortfolio can be introduced early in the semester and students should be asked to work continuously on it.^[26] b. The students should be told about the importance of creating an ePortfolio in the current competitive world.c. The students should be given detailed instructions and expectations on how to use the platform to make the most of it.^[26] d. Adequate access to technical support should be present.e. Students gain new insights by seeing what others are doing and can build relationships by watching one another develop skills.^[27] f. The students can be provided with the rubric so that they can understand the components on which they will be assessed.^[28] g. A draft portfolio can be submitted mid-way of the course to encourage them to start working early and get feedback.h. Reflections can be included at the end of the portfolio by providing guiding questions.

Challenges

a. The students may not understand the importance of giving peer feedback. ^[22] d. Time-consuming process and intimidating for instructors.^[30]

Suggestions

a. Roleplay can be done by the faculty with a feedback model to use specific action-oriented language so that the students can understand the process of giving the feedback. ^[30] c. When the students know that they are graded, they are more likely to provide effective feedback to peers.^[31] d. Guidelines about the process of the feedback and rubrics for evaluation should be shared with the students.^[23] e. The students should be informed to maintain a professional attitude when conducting a peer review and providing feedback.

Hence different tools can be incorporated to monitor the "assessment of learning" and "assessment for learning" in the online environment. However, in this present pandemic time, there are challenges faced by both the medical faculty and the students to get acquainted with the technical expertise.

The advantages and disadvantages of e-Assessment are listed in [Table 2].