Assessment in Sustainable Remote Teaching and Learning Environments During Emergency Situations

Abstract

This paper explores how quality assessment is maintained in the COVID-19 protocols mandatory remote teaching and learning higher education environments. The argument being pursued is that, despite the pandemic, the e-assessment ensures the sustainability of quality thereof even in remote teaching and learning environments. We compare e-assessments in these environments to how conventional assessments happen in in-person contexts. In this comparison, we unearth several challenges afflicting the conventional in-person assessments. These range from ill-prepared lecturers sometimes, who do not take time to formulate meaningful assessment tasks, to students who demand special treatment just because they are physically present and are able to 'bully' lecturers. In the COVID-19 mandatory remote e-assessments teaching and learning environments, despite the attended challenges of costs to install the Learning Management System and train academics, there seem to be many more positive outcomes. These include lecturers' ability to ensure that all students enrolled in the module read the materials provided, spend enough time doing so, and engage meaningfully with the learning subject content. That feedback is provided almost immediately to ensure quality in remote teaching and learning environments. Design research principles that serve as the overarching theoretical framework for this paper are used to identify the challenges to e-assessments, the responses to these challenges, the contextual factors that make the responses effective, those that pose threats thereto and how they are resolved and circumvented.