The Online Ordeal

2020 has been a tumultuous year filled with unprecedented challenges. Due to the lockdown, there were no on-site exams in Semester One. Instead, all exams were held as online examinations or were replaced with alternate assessments.

While online examinations could be the way forward – especially for Massey’s 12,000 distance students – the online examination period has received mixed responses from students and many have even found themselves missing the exam hall experience.

Massey psychology student Claudia felt there was less support than usual for her exams and found the instructions for how to complete her exams were unclear.

“We didn’t have much support and a lot of us were very confused so we set up a Facebook page. I definitely would have failed without it!”

She also added that she found getting into an exam mentality difficult while staying in student accommodation where, “the Wi-Fi is slow and there are distractions from others – like the apartment next to me!”

Fellow psychology student Paige agreed the online exams prevented her from feeling like she was in the proper exam headspace.

“I hated it!” she said. “It didn’t feel like I was sitting a proper exam so I didn’t have the same drive and motivation to study for it. Plus, knowing it was open book led to me studying less hard than I usually would to memorise everything.”

“I think I just prefer traditional paper exams because that’s what I’m used to doing throughout my whole education,” she said.

“The whole environment of being in the exam room with other students and supervisors watching us makes it feel a lot more serious than sitting an exam on my laptop alone.”

Adriana, a second-year Massey business student, explained that while she liked doing online exams, she believed that they were “marked much harder this way”.

“My friends and I all scored much lower than we usually do,” she said. “If that’s going to be the case in the future, I probably would prefer in-person exams.”

Students from various other universities across New Zealand have also backed these sentiments. Leon, a science student at the University of Auckland, agreed that online exams seemed harder than usual and the marking was harsher.

“I feel like it was poorly balanced,” he said. “Obviously, they need to make it harder and longer but it ended up taking ages. Plus, they seem to be marking quite harshly.”

Meanwhile, University of Canterbury psychology student, Caitlin, said she couldn’t get into the exam mindset without her pre-exam chats with peers.

“Having a pre-exam chat with other people in my class helped me get mentally prepared for the exam – I find comfort in being around other stressed people!” she laughed.

Madeleine, a first-year law and commerce student from the University of Otago was concerned about how much knowledge she had retained through the online assessments because this was her first encounter with tertiary exams.

“I feel like there was less pressure with online exams because ours were all open book,” she said. “Now I’m worried for future exams because I won’t know how to study hard for when I don’t have notes to fall back on.”

Another Otago law student, Joel, explained that he thinks universities are still “a wee bit away from having a reliable system that could work” when it comes to online exams.

“There’s too much to go wrong with online exams. I know many people couldn’t access their exams or couldn’t access Wi-Fi.”

However, Joel added that he was able to employ a rather unique approach to stress relief during his online exams as he ate mashed potato in the middle of his exam – something that he “10/10 would recommend.”

The online exam period was an inventive solution to last semester’s challenges; however, most students seem eager to return to traditional examination methods and some even missed the overzealous invigilator that treats you like a criminal for forgetting to bring your water in a transparent bottle.