Integrity of assessments in challenging times

ABSTRACT

A key role of universities is the credentialing of student learning by awarding degrees and diplomas. This requires universities to have confidence in the integrity of their assessment processes and in turn, external stakeholders to have the same confidence. This study investigates the following research question: ‘Has COVID-19 had an impact on the assessment and invigilation of accounting courses in Australia and New Zealand and, if so, how?’ This is a critical issue for accounting faculty in many countries as COVID-19 has forced a shift in the way assessments are administered – from face to face to online. The study involved a survey of accounting faculty in Australia and New Zealand and found changes occurred to how students were assessed because of COVID-19 and a variety of institutional responses to this. The paper makes recommendations for accounting educators, universities, and the professional accounting bodies.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• assessment
• integrity
• invigilation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See https://cheatsheetexam.com/how-to-copy-in-exams/cheating-on-an-online-exam/

2 See http://www.transformingexams.com/

3 Ethics approval was successfully applied for at all participating authors’ universities in 2021.

4 AFAANZ members are mostly accounting and finance academics from universities in Australia and New Zealand. There are a small number of industry members including publishers and technology software companies. Only representatives from universities would have completed the survey due to screening questions.

5 Some of these online exams were invigilated with software such as ProctorU or Examsoft.