The Assistant Professor in the UQU English Language Center, Dr. Samar Al-Mossa, traced the experience of the students of different Saudi Universities with learning and assessment during the first wave of COVID-19. This was via a research paper published in the journal of “Information Technologies for Education and Training”, affiliated to the publisher Springer, which was entitled: “University Students’ Perspectives Toward Learning and Assessment During the COVID-19 Pandemic”.

The paper studied a total of 124,810 tweets posted by male and female students from different Saudi universities in the period from March to May 2020. The tweets were analyzed using MAXQDA quantitative and qualitative tools.

The scientific results of the study target the academic staff members and the decision makers in the universities with regard to identifying future trends supporting the importance of developing and diversifying assessment methods, providing the proper training during the pandemic, and taking advantage of successful experiences.

The study indicated the existence of various challenges associated with the sudden shift from face-to-face to online learning at that time, beside the different channels of communication between the academic staff members and the students, which greatly affected the methods of assessment and the understanding of the course requirements. Such matters require intensifying the support provided for the students and the teachers to reduce the impacts of the different concepts and applications between them.

Dr. Al-Mossa referred to the impact of exams on the student accomplishments and its effect in achieving their future goals as one of the most common assessment methods in higher education, a matter that prompts the students to focus on the exams rather than concentrating on their learning and application of different skills. In this regard, she recognized the importance of attaching the needed concern to various assessment methods which have become more common during the online assessment period.

Moreover, she stressed the importance of discussing and studying the assessment implications on students’ learning during and after the period of sudden shifts, methods of protecting assessment against false applications, ensuring fairness in assessments in addition to identifying the challenges of presenting and correcting it, and the necessity of communication during the assessment period between the departments, academic staff members, and students.

**Research link: click here