Oral exam

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Live oral exam. Worth between 10-60%.

Type = Oral exam

Category = Final exam – secured

Description

A live oral exam assesses students' ability to verbally articulate their knowledge and understanding of course material at the conclusion of the learning period or at an identified program assessment point. This assessment type is conducted live in-person, and can take various formats, such as an individual or group Q&A session or interview, panel interview, or viva voce examination.

Note that "presentations" prepared in advance and delivered even in-person fall under Lane 2 Production and Creation - open.

Oral exams are designed to evaluate students' communication skills, critical thinking, and ability to respond to questions in real-time. They provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate their depth of understanding and ability to engage in academic discourse. Oral exams may have some advantage over written exams for assuring student attainment of learning outcomes as they give the student the opportunity to clarify their understanding of the question(s) being asked, and for the examiner to ask further follow-up questions to gauge the student's depth of understanding of the content. However, some students may find the oral exam a difficult format, for example due to language challenges or cultural differences. Unit of study coordinators should consider how to best support student preparation and ensure the marking rubric is structured so as to not unfairly disadvantage non-native speakers.

As a secure assessment, oral exams are conducted live and in-person to assure student attainment of learning outcomes. Oral exams may be standalone assessments, or additional components to another assessment, such as a presentation or submitted piece of work that may be a Lane 2 (open) assessment. 

Meaningful engagement with AI

Generative AI can be used in various ways in the preparation and conduct of oral exams. Unit of study coordinators may use AI to develop question guides and marking rubrics. AI can also be used to help students prepare for an oral exam, to conduct the oral exam (e.g. as a chat-bot avatar), or to help with feedback or quality improvement for the unit of study coordinator. 

• Before: Use AI to simulate interview scenarios and provide practice opportunities for students.
• During: Use AI-driven (+/- examiner co-piloted) platforms to perform the oral exam, such as to generate follow-up questions to the student. An example of this could be an oral exam that is observed by the examiner but performed between the student and a simulated client (custom AI) that has been trained to function in a specific way relevant to the learning outcomes being assessed.
• After: Utilise AI for automated transcription and analysis of oral responses to identify areas for improvement and provide actionable feedback. This may be provided to the student as feedback on their learning; and/or provided to the unit coordinator to identify common areas where students seem to struggle. This may help unit coordinators to identify necessary improvements for content delivery - e.g. suitable focus points for tutorials or lectures in future iterations of the unit of study.

Groupwork opportunities

While some oral exams will be more suited to individual students being assessed at unique times, groupwork can be incorporated into the design of an oral exam to help nurture students' 'soft' skills such as collaboration, communication and problem solving. Unit of study coordinators can consider including optional or mandatory contact points prior to the oral exam where students present their ideas to classmates and receive verbal or written feedback from classmates on those ideas. This can help students prepare better, and to feel better prepared going into their oral exam.

An oral exam may also take the form of a live Q&A session as an additional secure component of an open groupwork assessment.

Other resources 

An oral exam is one format for an oral assessment. Other kinds of oral assessment include:

• Oral test 
• Interactive oral assessment
• Viva voce