This type of oral assessment — or viva voce as it was known in Latin — is a tried and tested form of educational assessment. No need to sit in an exam hall, no fear of plagiarism accusations or concerns with students submitting essays generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Integrity is 100% assured, in a fair, reliable and authentic manner that can also be easily used to assess multiple individual or group assignments. As services like ChatGPT continue to grow in terms of both its capabilities and usage — including in education and academia — is it high time for universities to revert to the time-tested oral exam? “Chatbots cannot replicate this sort of task, ensuring student authenticity,” writes Dobson. “I argue that it is time to change our conversation to be more about assessment that actually involves a ‘conversation.'”
“Writing would still be important, but we should learn to re-appreciate the importance of how a student can talk about the knowledge and skills they acquired. Successfully completing a viva could become one of our graduate attributes, as it once was.”
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