https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1325-8831
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ABSTRACT
This study examines business students’ learning and assessment under remote teachings during the COVID-19 pandemic in a well-established Finnish university. A survey method is used to collect information on 336 business students including 42 accounting students. As indicated by students’ responses, a majority of the students succeeded in assessing and self-regulating their learning, but a considerable group of students failed in this task. Students gave a lot of positive feedback on supervised electronic exams, such as scheduling efficiency, improved ability to focus, and reduced stress level. Students also reported a low number of monitoring problems in these exams. Furthermore, the results provide evidence that some students see the risk that problems in monitoring coursework threaten the value of their university degrees. However, about half of the students did not want to increase monitoring. Accounting students’ opinions were mostly similar to those of the other business students. This study contributes to the literature by showing key factors that influence students’ learning in remote teaching under abnormal conditions. In addition, it demonstrates how the constructivist model of learning can be used to explain students’ learning and assessment in these circumstances.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09639284.2023.2229996)
Notes
1 In Finland, thesis work is a part of students’ university education, as it trains students to do scientific research. At the bachelor’s level, the students write a bachelor’s thesis, which consists of 20–30 pages. At the master’s level, students dig deeper into scientific research and write approximately 70–90 pages for their master’s thesis on the chosen research topic.
2 In this study, the terms monitoring and invigilation are used interchangeably to describe the level of monitoring that is addressed to students’ coursework, such as assignments and exams. The purpose of monitoring/invigilation is to ensure that the quality of education remains at a high level, and that employers can rely on the fact that graduates possess the skills and competence expected based on their university studies. These parallel concepts relate to the confirmation of students' identity relative to their course work. In certain jurisdictions (e.g. Australia), the professional bodies and employers give explicit pressures that a certain amount of the course work in degree studies should be based on work that is done while being monitored and linked directly to the student’s identity. ‘Monitoring’ is typically used in American English and ‘invigilation’ in British English.
3 The term ‘constructive alignment’ is often used to describe this.
4 In less than three years, this study has accumulated over 44,500 views and 115 CrossRef citations.
5 The research sample consisted of second-year accounting undergraduate students in the UK.
6 They used an online survey to examine Polish business and finance students.
7 The target sample covers first-year undergraduate business economics students taking an accounting course at a large research-oriented Belgium university.
8 The research sample consisted of Filipino college students. The documented problems in their online assessment are: incompatible browsers, anxiety over tracking tools, unstable internet connection, electric power interruptions, distraction in the environment, and unknown accessibility issues.
9 Halabi (Citation2021) tests this method in his MBA accounting course.
10 The target sample covers student records of 78,048 observations from a U.S. public research university.
11 They used a survey to collect information from instructors of the Middle East College.
12 This survey explored the seventh and eight level accounting students in the accounting departments of three Saudi Arabian universities. The students were more experienced and already passed a large number of assessments.
13 This means that 50 % of the overall assessed course work is monitored so effectively that the identity of the student can be linked to that course work.
14 The electronic EXAM exams are done by the students based on their own reservation. Usually, there is about 1–3 weeks’ time to take the exam, and this is decided by the instructor. EXAM is used by a consortium of Finnish Universities, and students also can take the exam in other universities than their home university. More information on EXAM can be found from the following website address: https://e-exam.fi/in-english/
15 In Finland it is not allowed to control students’ remote exams via the web camera. It was previously allowed, but after a student made a complaint on the policy, it was discontinued due to the violation of students’ privacy.
16 The need for the approval of studying human participants was inquired before the study. The university did not require the formal approval of studying students anonymously at the business school level. In addition, as shown in the Appendix, the first question asks students for consent to handle and report their replies confidentially and use them for scientific research and/or the development of teaching.
17 These survey questions, combined with the relevant background information that was asked, are provided as an online Appendix. The online appendix is available from the following address: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Jfr5XlpqgW16IU4C6QmTX22vTbPHtb-o?usp=sharing
18 The survey was written and sent both in Finnish and English. 210 students answered the Finnish survey, and 27 for the English survey. The quotes of the Finnish survey are translated to English. The language editor also edited the students’ responses in order to maintain the readability and authenticity of the answers. As such, the text inside the square brackets provides clarification for the reader, while supporting the content of the quotes. Moreover, the survey questions from the Appendix were edited by the language editor to improve their readability.
19 Originally, there were 237 responses, but one student did not give consent to use the data. Hence, her/his answers were not taken into consideration. Moreover, students were allowed to leave a question unanswered. For these reasons, the number of responses varies between 236-228.
20 Those responses, which were given in Finnish, are translated into English.