The Impact of Digitally-Based Exams on Teacher Performance and Student Exam Results

Digitally-based achievement tests were designed by the institute under study to create an innovative exam that suits today’s modern needs. These exams were shown to be environmentally-friendly (Kianoosh & Soltani, 2018a) and teachers’ perceptions were mostly positive (Kianoosh & Soltani, 2018b). However, being one of the most important parts of a course, assessment has inevitable effects on teachers and their lesson plans. Hence, the current study aimed to examine two main aspects: 1) the teaching quality and performance of teachers who used digitally-based exams in their classes, as well as 2) the impact of this exam on their students’ exam results. A total of 60 teachers were used in this study. They were between the ages of 25 and 35, with at least two years of experience and had a relevant academic background. 30 of them used digitally-based exams while the other half used paper-and-pencil exams. The observations of teachers who used digitally-based exams were compared with those who used paper-and-pencil exams to see if there were any significant differences between their classes and if the exam type had an impact on their students’ exam results. This study analyzed the participants’ teaching quality which included the various aspects of class preparation (needs analysis, staging, free practice, etc.), technicality (modeling, personalization, variety, etc.), and management (rapport, interaction, error treatment, etc.). Furthermore, the language learners’ final scores were compared in the digitally-based and paper-and-pencil groups to see if digitally-based exams had a significant impact on the students’ achievement or not.

Keywords:

Digitally-Based Exams , Teacher Performance , Student Exam Results , Assessment , Achievement Tests