Flipped Exams as a Reliable and Formative Assessment Tool in Higher Education

Abstract

Flipped exams are presented as a solution to overcome the limitations of online assessment, such as validity and reliability. Flipped exams are tests designed and solved by the students themselves at home, following the teacher's guidelines and instructions, and are later corrected by the teacher, who can provide further feedback. In times of COVID-19, flipped exams are reliable tools that facilitate assessment of both the learning process and the content, and they also stimulate students' critical and reflective thinking skills, thus covering cross-curricular competencies under a summative-formative assessment methodology. The benefits of flipped exams are further assessed by means of a students' perception survey delivered 18 months after the COVID-19 outbreak. The participants confirm that this novel methodology provided them with a high degree of freedom and autonomy, as well as the opportunity to organize their own time during the global lockdown.