Author First name, Last name, Institution

Sarah Khan, Zayed University
Rashid Azim Khan, Etisalat Digital

ORCID Identifiers

0000-0002-0110-5248

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Education and Information Technologies

Publication Date

1-15-2019

Abstract

© 2018, The Author(s). The United Arab Emirates is committed to integrating technology into higher education. In this study the researchers aim to explore the perspectives of university students on online assessments. An understanding of students’ views can help identify obstacles and promotors in embracing online assessments at the undergraduate level. The social constructivist epistemology has been used in this qualitative study to understand students’ preferences, apprehensions and acceptance of online assessments. Semi-structured focus group discussions were carried out after recruiting 41 university students, using convenience and snowball sampling methods. Thematic content analysis was applied to the data. This study highlighted that students did not comprehend the need for online assessments. Concerns regarding technological incompetence of students and teachers alongside distrust in the technology infrastructure were stressed. Students felt online assessments were restrictive for the science courses and had resulted in falling grades; probably due to the increasing dependence on multiple choice questions. Students also expressed the importance of constructive, timely and personalized feedback. Students need to be convinced of the usefulness of the transition to online assessment before they agree with it. It is evident through this study that student acceptance would increase with a gradual transition towards online assessments alongside technological training for both students and faculty. Active individualized interaction with instructors is important to students, furthermore preferences and concerns emphasized by students should be addressed to successfully integrate online assessments into higher education.

ISSN

1360-2357

Publisher

Springer New York LLC

Volume

24

Issue

1

First Page

661

Last Page

677

Disciplines

Education

Keywords

Concerns, Education, Online assessments, Preferences, Technology, United Arab Emirates

Scopus ID

85052651872

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

yes

Open Access Type

Hybrid: This publication is openly available in a subscription-based journal/series

Included in

Education Commons

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