Students’ complaints about Massey’s online exams fall on deaf ears

College students say their protests about situations hooked up toMassey College’s on-line exams have been ignored.

The examination interval is underneath method and lots of at the moment are run as on-line supervised exams. College students taking the web exams should use a quiet house and have their pc’s webcam and microphone on.

Andrew Steele, the final president of Te Tira Ahu Pae – Massey College College students’ Affiliation Federation, stated the affiliation consulted college students about on-line exams earlier this 12 months, with most against using it, and the suggestions was ignored.

“The suggestions was most college students weren’t pleased with [online exams]. We introduced that again to Massey and, lo and behold, they’re taking a look at creating 100% [online exams].”

The college stated it listened to pupil suggestions, however Steele stated their complaints had fallen on deaf ears.

“It saves effort and time and cash, however as soon as once more, it’s college students getting the blunt finish of the sword.”

Their issues included what occurred to the recorded examination after use and the way the monitoring system might penalise what it thought of to be uncommon behaviour by neurodivergent college students or individuals who struggled to make use of screens for an extended interval, however had been doing nothing improper.

“It’s exhausting sufficient conducting an examination with out that behind your thoughts, considering ‘oh my god I’m being scrutinised’.”

A enterprise pupil on the Albany campus, who wished to stay nameless, stated there had been ridiculous changes to the best way exams had been being run this semester.

She was sad about among the guidelines: no transferring lips to speak or whisper, no leaving the work station, no protecting their mouths, and no placing their fingers under the desk.

“These exams are two to a few and a half hours, which is a very long time to keep away from doing any of those actions.”

She stated folks typically moved their lips when studying a query and it was a very long time to not be allowed to go to the bathroom.

College students had informed the college they might do exams in individual to forestall dishonest, however Massey wouldn’t try this as a result of it price extra, she stated.

“I simply suppose that including in all these new restrictions provides much more stress to college students round examination time.”

A Massey spokesperson stated there had been no modifications to examination guidelines, however some wording had been included by the system’s vendor that was not pupil pleasant, they usually had been working to enhance the knowledge.

They stated the college had labored extensively with college students and course co-ordinators to hearken to suggestions and reassure them that Massey thought of particular person circumstances and utilized a “common sense method” to exams.

“This consists of providing various preparations if applicable, together with coming onto campus to take a seat an examination.”

All college students who sat on-line supervised exams in semester one had been requested to offer suggestions in August and September.

Of the 661 responses, 70% agreed or had been impartial to the assertion “having a web based supervised examination was acceptable”, up from 60% in the identical survey carried out in 2020.

“On-line exams have explicit expertise necessities to realize the identical requirements of examination integrity as pen-and-paper exams.”

The spokesperson stated the vary of expertise utilized by college students meant “often, some college students encounter interruptions or technical challenges, together with on account of late-breaking modifications to third-party methods”.

“Our groups work exhausting to make sure college students should not deprived within the occasion of expertise points.”

Massey didn’t reply questions on whether or not it saved cash by holding exams on-line and if it did, how a lot.