Novel ways of assessing tertiary level students’ English language courses in the era of AI

Abstract

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings some opportunities and challenges for the people of the new technologically advanced world, specifically in the education sector. Particularly in the context of students' assessment the impact of AI is more vivid. This study examines the kinds of assessment challenges tertiary level's English language teachers face in this AI era, how they deal with those challenges, and their preferences regarding new types of assessments in response to AI. Qualitative research methodology has been followed to conduct this study. The relevant data have been collected through semi-structured interviews. Four faculty members participated in this study and the data were analysed thematically. This findings identified some significant challenges regarding assessment such as unable to differentiate AI-Generated work and Student-driven Work, difficulty in assessing students’ actual skill or learning progress, unsupervised Take-Home assessments are the most problematic and teachers lack institutional training on effective student assessment in the AI era. This study also highlighted some teachers' preferable assessment in response to AI those are employing creative tasks, process-oriented assessment and project-based assessment etc. The study strongly emphasizes the demand for institutional training on assessment and effective policies on ethical AI integration in the education sector.