Do proctored online University exams in Covid-19 era affect final grades respect face-to-face exams?

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 pandemic forced universities to convert their traditional faceto-face exams to online exams with doubts as to whether student cheating or technical difficulties would affect their final grades. After taking three of these exams online, we considered comparing their grades with those of previous years on traditional exams. The average mark of the traditional exams before the pandemic was 6.95 over 10, while the average mark of the three exams carried out in the Covid-19 era is 6.64. The student's t test indicated that there are no significant differences between the two types of exams in the mean (p = 0.408), the median (p = 0.378), the range (p = 0.307), the minimum (p = 0.410) and the maximum (p = 0.072). Taking online exams did not modify the exam grades compared to previous years. There is a lot of variability in similar studies in the literature due to cheating that can be performed in online exams. A proctoring system, good question design, and limited exam time can minimize these differences.