Online Assessment Practices of English Language Teachers and Students in Higher Education in Bangladesh: Challenges and Choices

Online education appeared to be effective among stakeholders worldwide following the closure of educational institutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the technology used for online education has hardly been explored to such a massive extent earlier, stakeholders soon self-educated themselves in new technological skills. However, challenges became more complex when the issues of assessment arose. Maintaining the validity, reliability, fairness, and academic integrity in online-based assessment became an insurmountable task; again, there was a pressing need for endorsing resilience and empathy for the assessors and assesses, especially for those who faced discrimination due to COVID-19. This study draws on the findings of a nationwide survey of online programmes offered by Bangladeshi private universities during the late 2020. They reveal the locally adopted methods and supports for assessing learners online, identify several challenges of online assessment, including the use of assessment methods, inadequate assessment-related support, fairness, and reliability, and ensuring accessibility to the assesses. It also reveals the stakeholders' choices to deal with the challenges in assessment, including flexibility, designing questions, and adopting process approach among others. Resilience and empathy for the stakeholders towards each other were required to successfully deal with the challenges of an online assessment.