Digital Assessment Practices in Indian Higher Education

Introduction

The digital assessment practices in the Indian context seems to be limited due to various reasons such as high class size, lack of digital infrastructure, being low-income countries, and lack of digital knowledge. However, with the increasing use of digital integration in teaching-learning activities among developed countries, few of the higher education institutions did start to use digital assessment in their programmes. Recently with the onset of Covid-19, primary, secondary, and tertiary education did try to apply digital assessment methods in their virtual classrooms.

The pandemic has made us adopt various online tools to engage with learners and virtual reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) are another facet of it. The findings show that, students’ particularly from underrepresented minority background preferred to use the VR based tool and found it more engaging and it increased participants’ sense of involvement. Virtual reality technology provides an opportunity to leverage learning relevant interaction, which can enhance the design of learning technology (Sun, 2019). Learning from students’ feedback also plays a crucial role in improving the existing online assessment practices; a study explores the use of online assessment in higher education within students’ perspective. Study found that, students’ are positive about the use of online formative assessment tools and said that it enhances student’s interactivity, stimulates students to use online learning tools and study mentions some of the disadvantages as persuasiveness, lack of quality in real life training etc., (Subarno, 2019). A study conducted by Sabiq (2020) finds that using artificial intelligence (AI) in WhatsApp with auto-responder feature to assess students online was effective, transparent and accessible for both students and teachers; it improved student’s motivation and interest towards scoring better marks. The study is optimistic about the use of AI in WhatsApp to promote student’s self-learning.

A study conducted by Kundu and Bej (2021) on experiencing e-assessment during COVID-19: an analysis of Indian students' perception revealed that students across various disciplines have moderate acceptance for e-assessment and felt sorry for their lack of awareness, technical support system, and resource facilitation.

A study conducted by Lakshmi (2020) lists the use of online formative assessment tools such as Google forms, AnswerGarden, Padlet, Kahoot etc., and the results suggest that online assessment tools are more interactive and engaging than traditional offline assessment. The study reveals that majority of the participants in the survey had a positive attitude towards e-learning concepts and beliefs about its benefits but many think that it has its own limitations such as transparency, interactivity, and face-to-face contact. The author also points out the lack of competence shown by teachers to indulge in online classes and suggests holding training sessions. Communication is one of the key factors while handling online classes and knowing how to use learning management system (LMS).

Student friendly tools plays a vital role in easing online assessment practices. A study traces three teachers teaching English as second language from Bangladesh, Nepal and India on their different online formative assessment (mainly google docs, forms, WhatsApp and other free apps) to assess students and the feedback systems. The study revealed that, teachers use online formative assessment tools regularly and they are student friendly (Mahapatra, 2021).

Another recent study indicated that the formative assessment via Powtoon with regular feedback efficiently enhanced the learning experience of the undergraduate students. To add on, students enjoyed the online visual presentations and it is evident that Powtoon plays a vital role as a formative assessment tool for the students by challenging and stimulating creativity with the use of modern technology (Ramachandiran, 2019).