The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic largely disrupted the continuity of educational delivery. Online learning was the prompt response by educators. However, this comes with a big question on the conduct of assessment. Running examinations traditionally is vulnerable to high security risks and administration costs. A precise mechanism to…

The PhD viva has been described as mysterious (Burnham 1994; Morley et al. 2002), unpredictable (Rugg & Petre 2004) and potentially frightening for students (Delamont et al. 2004), with its form and duration a function of the predilections of individual examiners as well as a function of differences across disciplines. Despite its myriad…

Including speaking tasks in the foreign language paper of the Spanish University Entrance Examination (PAU) has been inexistent in the last 15 years. However, the implications can be seen in shape of pressure on teachers to get students ready for such tasks in just three years (2009-2012). Because of the high stakes consequences attached to this…

This paper investigates whether students would be reluctant to do the oral tasks of the Computer Based University Entrance Examination (P.A.U.) in Spain. So far in the Spanish history of education never a foreign language high stakes task has been included in any of the versions of the P.A.U. 60 students took the oral task of the P.A.U. which…

Review of trends in scores on the Scholastic Assessment Tests (SATs) suggests that increasing differences between mean scores on the verbal and mathematical sections may be at least partially due to statistical problems in the 1950s, changes in school curricula, and changes in the composition of the student test-taking population. (DB)

Analysis of literature on oral assessment in college instruction identified six dimensions: primary content type; interaction between examiner and learner; authenticity of assessment task; structure of assessment task; examiner; and orality (extent to which knowledge is tested orally). These help in understanding the nature of oral assessment and…

Student perceptions of the preparation for and fairness, value as a learning experience, and logistics of a newly implemented oral examination in a course preparing senior pharmacy students for community pharmacy practice are summarized. (MSE)

A student-oriented evaluation system is described and methods for oral examination (called team testing) evaluated. Based on qualitative and quantitative data, team testing seems to have merit. Faculty and students have repeatedly and overwhelmingly voted to continue the method. (LBH)

A study examined the likelihood that the oral examination's outcome would be the same regardless of which four of the approximately 100 examiners made up the examining team. Reliability was found to be high, but further steps are being taken to increase it. (Author/MSE)

The Shipley-Institute of Living Scale (SILS) was used as a criterion to evaluate the Quick Word Test (QWT) and the Wide Range Vocabulary Test Form B (WRVT-B). Testing 50 college students, the correlations were .68 with QWT, .73 with WRVT-B, and .81 between those two tests. (CTM)

A study of the reliability of oral tests in a medical school illustrates the use of a balanced incomplete block design, chosen when not all participating examiners can rate each examinee, for experimental research. (MSE)

Assessing the construct relevance of mental test results continues to present many challenges, and it has proven to be particularly difficult to assess the construct relevance of verbal items. This study was conducted to gain a better understanding of the conceptual sources of verbal item difficulty using a unique approach that integrates…

Three "tests" of intellectual competence (vocabulary, remote associates, trigram word-making) which permit cheating were standardized by rankings of 71 college students. The three tests were found to be equidistant along the dimension of perceived difficulty. Suggestions are made for using these tasks in cheating studies. (Author/SJL)

A discussion of multifacet Rasch model analysis describes the Rasch model and its assumptions, then presents an extension of the model to include a facet for the influence of examiner severity. The model is illustrated with an application to an oral examination administered by a medical specialty board. (Author/MSE)

This paper described one part of an item response theory (IRT) feasibility study performed for the Aptitude Test portion of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE). The dimensionality of the GRE verbal and analytical sections is discussed. The results of six different types of equating of the verbal section and four different types of equating of…