Online Assessment: How Effectively Do They Measure Student Learning at the Tertiary Level?

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly adopting online learning procedures to facilitate and hopefully, enhance learning outcomes. However, concerns are arising regarding the reliability of this platform in measuring students learning outcomes. Unfortunately, these concerns are mainly linked with technological and administrative failures that are likely to occur before or during the assessment process, and not with the actual attainment of the learning objectives. Using literature review as the research method, this paper provides some perspectives on the effectiveness of online assessment in measuring student learning at the tertiary level. Examples from the authors’ own teaching experience are also provided to support the premise of the discussion. The research findings indicate that while both formative and summative online assessments are useful in measuring student learning at the tertiary level, there is no consensus on whether online platforms can be used effectively in both types of evaluation, with studies associating these platforms with various strengths and weaknesses. This study concludes that HEIs, having little choice at the current time, should take advantage of online platforms strengths in measuring certain types of student learning while at the same time, ponder on the questions raised in this study on the need to institute remedial procedures to mitigate these platforms limitations in measuring other types of learning that are difficult to capture using online assessment.