High stakes testing can create a high level of stress and emotion in students that can prevent the student from understanding the question rationale in order to perform better going forward. This discussion will focus on challenges with online exam review as well as strategies for turning emotion into understanding.
This panel discussion will combine perspectives from faculty, instructional design, and academic administration regarding the hot-topic of exam reviews in an online program. In a program where several courses contain high-stake testing, there can be a lot of emotion and stress on the part of the student when it comes time to review their exams. In our experience, this emotion does not allow the student to truly understand the rationale for the right answer or to understand why the answer they selected is not correct. In addition, online exams come with threats to exam integrity related to students capturing pieces of the exams to save and share later. When these problems co-exist, the online team has to work together to create a solution that allows students to review exams and ask questions while preserving the integrity of the exam for future use. At the start of this panel discussion we will review why exam reviews are important to the success of the student and discuss the different types of exams reviews that we have utilized over the past four years. The panel will engage the audience to discuss challenges that exist with exam reviews that are not done in person, but instead of done in the online setting. From there, we will share our current approach to exam reviews and how it has turned an experience that used to be emotional on the part of the student into one that promotes student improvement and success.