Abstract
As occurred in many Universities worldwide, the response to the COVID-19 pandemic required us, professors at Western University (London, Canada), to quickly convert a first-year biology course with over 1200 enrolled students from an in-classroom format to an on-line format. This transition included the course exams. While the first multiple-choice exam in February 2020 was in-person and proctored, we changed the second multiple-choice exam in March 2020 so that it was completed by students online at home without a proctor. We had concerns about this online conversion, including whether the grades would represent student understanding of the course material when access to peers and other resources during the exam was not monitored. In this report we show student scores on the online exam were highly correlated with their prior in-person exam. A similar correlation was observed with prior first-year students who took similar exams in February and March 2019 which were both in-person and proctored. These results provide some reassurance that it is possible to rapidly transition the delivery of an exam from an in-person format to an online format without compromising the exam process.
Highlights
As of Sept 20th, 2021, the 2019-21 coronavirus pandemic that began in China has spread to over 200 countries and has resulted in over 4.6 million deaths.[1]
In this report we describe how the March 2020 online exam was undertaken, and how a student’s score compared to their prior February 2020 in-person exam
The Biology Department offers the second half of a foundational first-year biology course in the winter semester, which runs from January to April
Summary
As of Sept 20th, 2021, the 2019-21 coronavirus pandemic that began in China has spread to over 200 countries and has resulted in over 4.6 million deaths.[1] The need for physical distancing during the early days of the pandemic required many University campuses to close worldwide.[2] Many students who were receiving an in-person classroom course were rapidly transitioned to receiving course content exclusively online at home. Lectures were recorded and posted online within a short period. Individual instructors needed to make decisions on how to assess student understanding and application of the course material, with. Revised Manuscript received on September 27, 2021.
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