Oral exams and assessments were among the most preferred methods to evaluate students and their progress. These assessments have had a long history going back to classical Greece, where students would often be expected to demonstrate their learning in public debate. Known as viva voce examinations, oral assessments allowed teachers to understand how well their students have progressed by listening to their responses when posed with questions. In the aftermath of the AI boom, chatbots like ChatGPT, Bard, and many others have come to be known as potential hazards to academic integrity. This is because these tools are capable of generating human-like answers, essays, and even research papers that students can easily copy from. While these advanced language models have left teachers wondering about how to tackle this growing problem of AI plagiarism and automated content generation, the solution might lie in a method that has now gone out of fashion.
The expansion of universities and widespread enrollment in educational institutions in the Age of Enlightenment prompted a shift in attitude toward the long-established tradition of oral exams. Academics slowly transitioned to written examinations that would free up their schedule and allow them to assess and grade written transcripts in the comfort of their homes. However, the risks of artificial intelligence when it comes to student assessments have now become increasingly apparent. Teachers might have to bring back the viva voce examination, which has consistently remained a great method to understand the extent of a student’s knowledge. The below sections posit and explore why oral examinations and their return might be able to mitigate the challenges posed by generative AI in education.
Oral Exams and Safeguarding Assessments in Education
Oral exams might become central to preventing cheating and other academic integrity concerns.
Oral exams are ripe for making a comeback in education because the AI-driven revolution has allowed teachers and policymakers to reemphasize the necessity for human interaction in learning. While AI might be able to bring in transformative changes such as adaptive learning and research, it still falls short when compared to a human teacher. AI simply cannot make the same quality of decisions when it comes to academics. Oral assessments on the other hand bring back personal interaction while removing the risks of cheating and dubiety. Viva voce might make it impossible for students to pass off AI-generated content as answers in their manuscripts. Instead, they will have to answer questions from their examiners in person and in real time. The pivotal role that teachers play in a student’s life will become more emphasized as learners demonstrate their extent of understanding in their own words. This format of assessments is more direct than its written counterparts, helping academics judge even the fluency and coherence of their pupil’s thoughts during an examination.
While there’s no doubt that machine learning in education is indeed opening several pathways for both teachers and students, the rapid modernization of education technology has also led to an increase in student dependence on devices as opposed to organic learning methods. While AI testing and assessment techniques do provide valuable insights and data down to the last student, they might also end up obfuscating key parameters due to AI bias and a limited perspective. The extent of the data set ends up dictating key decisions for AI tools and raises ethical concerns surrounding prejudice and ignorant conclusions. Merely relying on an analytical approach might also ignore other facets of student development and learning, stemming from a myopic and unidimensional assessment metric. Oral exams, on the other hand, allow teachers to gauge subject knowledge, confidence, fluency, coherence, and overall prudence.
Oral Exams, Better Learning, and the Risks of Artificial Intelligence
AI and its influence on education will continue, but academia requires measures to retain the human component in education intact.
While oral assessments offer the obvious advantage of weeding out AI influence in student manuscripts, the method also presents other key advantages it can offer to students. Not only does an oral exposition reveal the potential for critical thinking, but it also allows teachers and examiners to provide immediate feedback and suggestions to the students. As concepts like AI tutors become more popular, the resurgence of oral examinations will be instrumental in reintroducing the human element in higher education. Striking the right balance between artificial intelligence and time-tested organic methods will bring about the best of both worlds and will prevent overreliance on technology in learning. Live, in-person interactions will also help assessors put forth intuitive questions and problems that will test the analytical capabilities of a student. This process will address concerns surrounding applicative learning and demonstrate the student’s abilities to make use of what they understand from their curriculum in a practical framework.
These exams are utilitarian modes of one-on-one communication between teachers and their students, allowing the former to rectify misconceptions and gaps in the latter’s understanding. As students become more reliant on tools like AI-driven search engines, teachers will be able to make estimations on the sources of learning a student uses through verbal interactions. Instructors can even provide a morale boost at the end of these exams, by offering students much-needed advice and guidance on their curriculum. Moreover, as concerns surrounding educational equity remain a key aspect in the debate surrounding AI in education, oral examinations will be an important tool to level the playing field for all students, regardless of their socioeconomic dispositions.
Challenges in Implementation of Oral Exams and the Future of Assessment
Despite challenges, it will be worthwhile to integrate time-tested methods like oral examinations with modern AI-driven educational technologies.
Since oral exams have been largely replaced with other forms of assessment in modern education, the revival of this method will require concerted effort and popularization. That being said, oral examinations are not without their challenges and require considerable amounts of time and effort. Logistical support alongside qualified examiners is needed to ensure that these assessments will be carried out fairly. Moreover, standardizing oral exams is more daunting and will require dedicated parameters and guidelines to make the process uniform. Also, we live in a world where technological reliance is more of a norm rather than a choice. Maximizing the benefits of oral examinations will require a degree of technological integration while ensuring the human element remains central to the process. As tools like AI detectors become more popular, the development of responsible artificial intelligence might also help to strike a balance between AI tools and innately human testing methods while simultaneously addressing their challenges.