(366b) The Oral Exam – an Alternative Approach to Assessment

A traditional paper exam is one of the most artificial ways to assess an individual’s ability because there is only a single opportunity (i.e. you can only write one answer, which is judged right or wrong), information is unidirectional, and it is not typically performed outside of academia. A better approach would include a dialogue between student and professor where incorrect responses can be immediately corrected, and students given an opportunity to resume the correct logic. To address this, an oral exam format was used as an assessment tool in both the Material and Energy Balances and Thermo II courses. Briefly, students were asked to generate a slide deck and present the most important concepts for a particular section of the course. The instructor would periodically interject during the presentation to ask a student to provide a deeper explanation, if it was not initially done so. The first utilization of this method in Thermo II solely relied on the presentation, but the recent implementation in Material and Energy Balances incorporated a problem recitation by the student. Reactions to this methodology will be presented, as well as example content and the rubric used for evaluation.