A Study on the Influence of Testing on Teachingon University Teachers

Abstract

ackground:The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia emphasizes improving education as it is the future of its citizens. Over the years, students have interacted physically with teachers in schools and universities. They had the privilege of getting their doubts clarified face-to-face. They used to take tests in the classroom in front of their teachers. However, owing to Covid-19 worldwide, the education system has stood still for months recently. Within a brief period, all the teachers, students, and universities worldwide shifted to online teaching and learning. Teaching online has created stress among teachers because the content must be tested or evaluated online. This study explores the washback effect of online testing on the teaching fraternity while teaching online.

Objectives:

• To identify the influence of online testing on online teaching.


• To find out the satisfaction levels of teachers regarding online teaching and testing.

Methods:the researchers have approached the teaching fraternity of 12 universities in the KSA. A questionnaire was designed with ten statements on the online teaching and testing process to check the washback effect. The study used hypothesis testing to check for significant differences across categories for analysing the collected data. Next, logistic regression was used for modelling the probability of a teacher being satisfied with online teaching depending on the categorical responses to the statements related to the teaching and testing process.

Results:It has been understood that based on the study conducted, a good number of faculty are still reluctant to move from offline to online teaching. We think this pandemic has not influenced those faculty members indifferent towards online teaching. The reasons might be the stress involved in online teaching, network issues during teaching, or the inability to cope with technological advancements.

Conclusions:The study has identified a significant effect of online teaching on online testing. It has been identified that experience does not impact the teaching and testing process in the online teaching model. The researchers further noted that the online teaching mode influences the testing process. The study has also found that the faculty's preference for incorporating online teaching is based on certain factors.