AI for Teaching and Learning | Assessment | Teaching Inclusively |
Assessing Student Learning with Oral Exams
In this resource, we cover:
- What are Oral Exams?
- Why Incorporate Oral Exams?
- How Do You Implement Oral Exams?
- Faculty Perspectives on Oral Exams
What Are Oral Exams?
Oral exams are a method of assessment through which an instructor verbally (rather than in writing) tests students’ knowledge and application of course concepts. An oral exam has the potential to test students’ discipline-specific skills, knowledge, and application of that knowledge through verbal performance. What sets oral exams apart from in-class presentations is the interactive nature between the instructor and student(s). During oral exams, instructors typically use authentic, conversational methods to evaluate student mastery.
This form of assessment has a long history in classroom settings, dating back to Socratic dialogues (Redfield, 2017). Historically, these assessments were social and verbal. The transition toward written examinations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is a relatively recent adaptation due to significant enrollment growth (Stray, 2001). The “research paper” emerged as the gold standard for assessing deep inquiry, shifting the burden of proof from a live performance to a static artifact (Moulton & Holmes, 2003).
Today, as higher education adapts to AI and a myriad of other new challenges, the value of oral exams is seeing renewed interest.1
Why Incorporate Oral Exams?
Oral exams are an enduring and robust method for assessing student competency and safeguarding academic integrity within an evolving educational landscape.
While automated tools may effectively manage lower-level cognitive tasks, the nuanced nature of verbal dialogue remains uniquely suited for evaluating higher-order skills, such as the construction of creative arguments based on complex theoretical frameworks (Nguyen Thanh et al., 2023). Ultimately, instructors who utilize a wide variety of assessment methods allow students to demonstrate a range of strengths, leading to a more holistic assessment of their learning across multiple modalities.
Oral exams can stretch students beyond the limits of written assignments and are particularly vital for developing a student’s verbal communication skills while also probing their deep conceptual understanding.
Further, with the rise of generative AI, some university instructors have become concerned that research papers and other out-of-class writing assignments may no longer be robust assessments of student learning, prompting a return to oral exams. The interactive nature of oral exams may mitigate issues of academic integrity, particularly when tasks mirror real-world scenarios. Beyond upholding integrity, oral exams help students develop their professional identity, refine communication skills, and enhance their employability (Sotiriadou et al. 2020).
How Do You Implement Oral Exams?
Despite the historical significance and benefits of oral exams, some challenges and limitations exist—related to pedagogical, personal, logistical, and situational factors—that need to be considered and addressed to reap the benefits of this approach to assess learning.
Pedagogical and Personal Factors
- Identify the specific learning objectives you will assess. Reflect on how having students complete an oral exam aligns with the overall learning outcomes or goals for the course and develops proficiency and competence in specific disciplinary skills. By taking time to think about this, you are better able to set the scope of the oral exam including topics covered, types of questions, number of questions, time to administer, and the evaluation criteria.
- Select only a small number of topics and concepts. Creating questions that prompt students to apply knowledge and techniques or make decisions about real-life situations based on different scenarios are generally effective.
- Discuss your rationale for using the oral exam. Explain not only the relevance for students to develop proficiency in the course content, but also the long-term benefits and connections to their future in the specific discipline or professional settings generally. You could have students reflect on when and where they might need to communicate orally in their future career and the degree to which they feel confident in their ability to do so at this time.
- Communicate with learners about the format of the exam and what to expect. To reduce anxiety, provide low-stakes opportunities in pairs or small groups in class to practice responding to the types of questions that will be used on the oral exam under similar conditions using other topics. Create a rubric in advance and decide whether you will share the rubric before or after the exam. You could share the rubric but not the questions on the exam or vice versa. Sharing either one will also help to reduce some anxiety and ensure inclusivity and accessibility.
- Provide an opportunity for students to reflect on their experience preparing for and going through the exam. This can be done whether you administer a single oral exam or multiple. Using an exam wrapper or minute paper format, which is graded for completion, can help students prepare for future exams and reflect more deeply on their approach to learning and engagement in the course.
Logistical and Situational Factors
- Decide how many oral assessments you will administer and the relationship with your overall assessment plan for the course. For example, how many oral exams make sense for your course and for which topics? How does the timing of the oral exam(s) connect to the homework or other assignments? It is worth noting that oral exams are most effective as a component of your overall assessment plan, not as the only form of assessment.
- Decide in advance whether you will give students all the questions ahead of time or just the topics that will be covered and whether they will be able to reference notes or other materials during the exam. The more inclusive and accessible practice is to provide some form of materials in advance to learners, which will help them prepare appropriately and reduce most of the anxiety.
- Consider the logistics involved with administering the exam (e.g., time of day, length of time, and location). Will the exams be administered to all students on the same day (e.g., during the class period, at 10–15-minute intervals) or on different days? Be sure to choose a quiet area with limited distractions. If you’re not able to administer the oral exam for all students in a single time block on a single day, you might create a bank of questions related to the topics and rotate them for different students. This way students on day two won’t get the same questions as day one, even though the topics being assessed are the same.
- Consider starting small (e.g., change one or two assessments to be an oral exam to figure out what works for you and your learners and what doesn’t) before making major changes to your overall assessment plan. You might also find some benefit in talking through your approach with a colleague or a few students before and after.
Additional Considerations
- Class size: A larger class size means you will need to spend more time administering the exam. When administering a traditional exam, you would print as many as you need for the class or make it available in the learning management system with everyone completing the assessment in the same block of time. With an oral exam, you could be administering the same exam in different blocks of time to individual people. If you have teaching assistants (TAs), this may help address the time spent administering the exam; however, you will also need to ensure the TAs are adequately trained to effectively administer and grade exams. This is particularly important for equity, accuracy of grades, and asking appropriate follow-up questions to probe students’ proficiency in the content.
- Content coverage: It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to cover the same amount of content in an oral exam as you would in a traditional exam format. This also relates to the type of questions you will use. Fill-in-the-blanks and multiple-choice questions will probably not be as effective on an oral exam compared to open-ended questions.
- Increased anxiety: Some students may experience added anxiety in an oral exam format, which may affect their performance. The high-stakes nature of the exam coupled with individual differences in information processing time, comfort engaging in one-on-one situations, and anxiety levels may negatively affect some students’ ability to perform at their best.
Note on Time
On the one hand, it may seem like administering an oral exam will take more time than if you decided to do a traditional written exam. However, the impact primarily depends on your situational constraints (e.g., class size, length of class time) and implementation plan. In some instances, administering an oral exam might save you time or work out to be just about the same. One possible advantage of administering oral exams over traditional written exams is that the majority of the grading can be done in real time rather than after administering the exam.
Note on Accessibility
Oral exams can remove barriers for some neurodivergent learners (e.g., dyslexic, ADHD, or dysgraphic) and English language learners by eliminating constraints related to spelling, handwriting, or written academic English. These assessments affirm strengths in verbal reasoning and provide opportunities to clarify key points or correct mistakes in real time.
However, oral exams can place a significant strain on working memory. Learners with auditory processing disorders, autism, or other processing-related disorders may experience challenges that significantly affect their performance.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach, so take proactive steps to learn about your students’ needs early on to reduce or remove barriers. Notre Dame instructors with specific questions about accommodations can contact Sara Bea Accessibility Services to ensure an exam is accessible while meeting established learning outcomes.
Faculty Perspectives on Oral Exams
In addition to the considerations outlined in this article, we invite you to review these instructor perspectives on implementing oral exams. Each perspective includes an overview of their course context, why they chose to use oral exams, and how they implemented them in their course.
If you are a Notre Dame instructor and have questions or would like to talk through designing an oral exam, email Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence at kaneb@nd.edu to schedule a consultation with a member of our team.
1 Oral exams can be a valuable addition to your overall assessment plan when implemented with thought and care. However, they are most effective as a component of your overall assessment plan, not as the only form of assessment.