Post-Exam Videos for Assessment in Computing Courses: See and Hear Students' Thinking

ABSTRACTThe Covid-19 pandemic forced many institutions to offer online courses from March 2020 through June 2021. A challenge in the online setting is assessing student work while maintaining academic integrity. This paper reports on augmenting traditional written exam problems with short video explanations of student solutions. These exam videos share some of the learning goals of oral exams and technical interviews, getting a more complete understanding of students' thinking process on the way to a solution. While these exam videos were originally designed to combat non-authorized answer-seeking and answer-sharing practices (cheating), they were a positive learning tool for students. Over 85% of surveyed students want exam videos in future courses, even when returning to in-person instruction. The benefits expressed by students include getting a chance to reflect on the solution under less time pressure, correcting mistakes as they explain solutions, and demonstrating a more complete understanding. The main benefit for the instructor was to see and hear students' problem-solving processes. The time to record and watch videos was an additional task for both students and the instructor, so this solution may not scale to large classes.