Reliability of Assessing Oral Presentations by the University Professionals

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue IX, September 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Reliability of Assessing Oral Presentations by the University Professionals

K.T.A.C. Kasthuriratna¹, R.M.M.P. Rathnayaka², V.N. Kodithuwakkuge³, C.K. Beneragama³
1189/1, 2nd Lane, Werellawatta, Yakkala, Sri Lanka
²Department of Agricultural Extension, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
³Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Abstract: The fairness and precision of evaluation of Oral Presentations of students by university professionals have become a debatable subject. The effectiveness of the evaluation of PowerPoint presentations was seriously questioned by the students due to its unreliability of scoring procedure. Therefore, it’s important to establish a planned evaluation system for oral presentation based on PowerPoint, to guarantee the fairness for every student. To minimize the potential biases, most of the universities presently adopt Objective Structured Evaluation systems to enhance the transparency and the reliability of the assessments. In view of that, the present study analysed the biasness of assessing the oral presentations of a student cohort of a university. For this study, mean score of each student received from each examiner was taken. Single-factor ANOVA tests were conducted to analyse variances to compare three examiner groups; professors, senior lecturers and probationary lecturers. Tukey simultaneous test was conducted to identify mean differences in each comparison. Strong evidence of differences among the three examiner groups was present. Within the most senior level of professionals, a greater degree of variance was also identified. In addition, there is a variance within the senior lecturer group while the probationary lecturer group did not reflect any significant variance. In conclusion, our findings demonstrated statistically significant differences in the marks awarded for the PowerPoint presentations of undergraduates as influenced by examiners’ experience and seniority both in between examiners and within the same level of examiners.

Keywords: Oral presentations, Assessing reliability, Examiners’ effect, University professionals, objective structure

I.INTRODUCTION

The fairness and precision of evaluation of oral presentations of students by the university professionals has become a debatable subject over the last few decades. The effectiveness of the evaluation of PowerPoint presentations has been occasionally questioned by the students due to its unreliability of the scoring procedure. These have created a lot of uneasiness and unrest among students resulting in adverse moral effects to their lives [11]. The lack of transparency and inferior quality assessments cause serious consequences for students in guaranteeing the assessment quality. Therefore, identification of factors affecting the reliability of these assessments and minimizing such, may improve the quality of assessments enhancing the student’s faith on assessments.
PowerPoint presentations are an integral part of the evaluation system in most of the universities [11]. However, due to various reasons, the reliability of assessing has become questionable. Therefore, it’s important to establish a well-planned evaluation system for oral presentation based on PowerPoint, targeting the fairness for each student. The factors affecting the fairness or consistency of assessment could be identified in four major areas as (i) Biasness, (ii) Untrained professionals in assessing presentations, (iii) Lack

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