Limitations in Written Summative E-Assessment in Higher Education – An Analysis of a Student Survey

Abstract

Written summative online examinations are usually conducted virtually from remote locations (Bloh, 2006) and ofer various advantages and challenges like high fexibility, low travelling cost and lower climate impact due to less paper consumption (Alruwais et al., 2018; Guàrdia et al.,2017). But virtual methods will not necessarily simplify the examination process at universities (Broadfoot, 2016). Observations at Technische Universität Dresden (TUD) have shown that even with a high level of efort in creating summative e-assessment online, it is hardly possible to develop a widely accepted method for implementation of written online exams mostly because it is technically complicated and leaves not enough room for various didactical approaches. Summative e-assessment has been the exception before 2020 (Riedel & Möbius, 2018) and the rush to digitize written exams due to the pandemic leaves both students and teachers dissatisfed with the outcome of the many written online exam approaches (Handke & Schäfer, 2012). Research shows how socio-demographics infuence the success of e-assessment (Bahar & Asi, 2018) or address security issues for users (Uotinen et al., 2020). But there is no research so far on specifc technical limitations that infuence students’ performance in written online exams. This paper addresses that gap with a quantitative analysis of a survey of business and economics students at TUD in the winter semester 2020/2021, who were examined exclusively virtually due to the pandemic. With these fndings, new technical and didactical methods for the implementation of summative e-assessment can be developed. [Aus: Introduction]