Abstract:

The first world pandemic of the XXI century affected many social aspects, mainly showing vulnerabilities and opportunities in the higher education learning-teaching process. Many Higher Education Institutions (HEI) quickly reacted and virtually made their primary responsibilities. Impact in the HEI is considered deep and diverse, showing that the academic community can promptly adapt to various challenges.

University crisis management highlighted the importance of factors like the creation of a control crisis group, bringing new services created in the pandemic times, professionalizing professors promoting the commitment to strengthen educational practice, measuring levels of learning and emotional health before, during, and after, and promote the well being of the university community.

All these actions are for a cycle to close gaps and increase quality. In the professionalized professors’ action, one main concern in the pandemic and the post-pandemic is assessment; conducting exams was a complex challenge for many professors, especially for those who were not well-practiced in online mode.

There are several assessment types diagnostic, formative, summative, confirmative, norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, and ipsative. And several tools llike in-class observations, home assignments, practical exams, projects, portfolios, essays, short-answer questions, and open & close-book exams.

This study employed two surveys using the Likert scale with 18 questions each and a total of 120 students and 15 professors who participated voluntarily. The surveys are divided into four sections: personal data of the participants, experiences, perceptions, and preferences of the different assessment modalities of the online exam during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and finally, a comparison between the two modalities. All participants are from the academic community of Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana campus Azcapotzalco, a federal and public university in Mexico City.

In online examinations, there are drawbacks like lack of sufficient resources, hardware/software problems, power supply, IT skills, and some subject-related problems (like in engineering). Professors’ concerns are that preparation time shall be longer, the increased temptation for students to cheat, and a creative evaluation method. Students have shown lower test anxiety than in class. It can be seen that students find different ways of cheating; common forms include peeking, whispering, and the use of technological devices or traditional forms to pass responses. For HEI, maintaining the integrity and ethical conduct is essential during exams and all activities. There are several tools to prevent academic misconduct during online exams like software and video proctoring, exam design, additional assessments, honor codes, and penalties.

It is essential to rethink the way assessments are designed and deployed to evaluate the achievement or not of a course objective, considering the use of digital technology aligning to competencies in the professional job world.

Keywords:

Assessment, higher education, crisis management, post-pandemic opportunities, professionalized professors’ action.