Analysis of Lecturers’ Opportunities and Challenges Regarding Formative Online Assessments at a University of Technology
Paseka Patric Mollo 
Issue: Vol.5 No.16 Issue Article 32 pp.3087-3102
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.202451632 | Published online 24th December, 2024
© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
During COVID-19, formative online assessments became widely employed at universities. Face-to-face academic activities were suspended, increasing the use of information and communications technology (ICT) and online assessments. University lecturers were forced to change their pedagogical strategies, teaching and learning paradigms, and evaluation procedures. The trend continued after the COVID-19 era and has become a norm at higher education institutions. This change brought about mixed feelings among lecturers as some saw opportunities while others experienced challenges. This empirical paper, therefore, discussed the opportunities and challenges experienced by lecturers when using formative online assessments. The theoretical framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) was used. Six purposively selected lecturers from the Faculty of Humanities at the Central University of Technology in South Africa were sampled and interviewed. The findings revealed that online formative assessments enabled lecturers to be more flexible on assessment schedules, meet various student demands and learning preferences, and give their students immediate feedback on their academic performances. The main challenges were formative online assessments’ validity, reliability, dishonesty, and academic integrity. The study underscores the importance of clear communication about academic integrity, making the audience feel the need for proactive measures to ensure the integrity of online assessments. The study recommended that lecturers should, among other things, make technical assistance resources available to students, explicitly convey expectations about academic integrity and cheating, and outline clear learning objectives for each assessment. This paper provides a significant contribution to the scholarship surrounding the opportunities and challenges that lecturers face when implementing formative online assessments at a university of technology.
Keywords: COVID-19, Information Communications Technology (ICT), Formative Online Assessment, Student Teachers, Teacher Education.
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Dr. Paseka Patric Mollo serves as a senior lecturer in the Department of Educational and Professional Studies within the Faculty of Humanities at the Central University of Technology (CUT) in Free State. He earned his Doctor of Education (D.Ed.) degree from CUT. Dr. Mollo teaches at the undergraduate level and supervises Master’s and Doctoral students. He has presented numerous papers at both national and international conferences, published in various journals, and contributed to book chapters. His research interests center on teacher education and development, with a particular focus on the integration of Information Communications Technology (ICT) in teaching and learning, micro-teaching, assessment, and TVET college education. Prior to his tenure at CUT, Dr. Mollo held several positions in the education sector, beginning as a teacher and Head of the Department for Mathematics and Technology. He later served as a lecturer at a College of Education and a part-time lecturer at the former University of the North (Qwaqwa Branch). Subsequently, he advanced to the role of First Education Specialist and then Senior Education Specialist at the Free State Department of Education, where he was responsible for in-service training and the professional development of teachers. Dr. Mollo was later appointed Deputy Chief Education Specialist for the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), overseeing TVET college management and institutional development.
Mollo, Paseka Patric. “Analysis of Lecturers’ Opportunities and Challenges Regarding Formative Online Assessments at a University of Technology,” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 5, no.16 (2024): 3087-3102. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.202451632
© 2024 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
