Integrating Oral Assessments in Your Courses

Originally published October 31, 2025

Designing Oral Assessments for Learning and Integrity

With growing concerns about plagiarism and the rise of GenAI tools, many instructors are renewing their interest in incorporating oral assessments as a way to uphold academic integrity and ensure students meaningfully demonstrate their learning (Chen et al. 2024; Fenton 2025; Gardner & Giordano 2023; Stephenson et al. 2025). Studies suggest that interactive, customized, and thoughtfully designed oral assessments positively influence students’ educational progress and communication skills while reducing the likelihood of academic misconduct (Kang et al. 2019; Sabin et al. 2021).

To support instructors with a better understanding of varied design choices for effective oral assessments, scholars have identified six key dimensions to consider when planning (Joughin 1998; Cantin et al. 2025):

1. Knowledge and Skills: Identifying knowledge and skills, aligned with course learning outcomes and clearly communicated with students (i.e., can identify, demonstrate, and evaluate effective focus group facilitation skills).

2. Interaction: Including some form of verbal interaction or dialogue between the student and the instructor.

3. Unscripted: Allowing unscripted or natural aspects to the verbal interaction that are authentic to professional or program-based oral communication expectations (i.e., evaluating alternative policy options in an accessible language for public audiences).

4. Question Format: Selecting the question format, where questions may have either ‘closed,’ defined, or correct answers (i.e., show and describe how you handle cell cultures in the lab to prevent contamination) or ‘open’ or varied interpretations or explanations in the answer (i.e., “Explain why you decided to highlight Atwood’s experiences as a young woman in your review of The Edible Woman?”). 

5. Leadership: Choosing either a student-led performance or demonstration (i.e., walking through an explanation of actions; prepared debate notes and student interactions) or an instructor-led interaction with test questions or guided inquiry (i.e., “How was this design different from your first design? Why did you make changes?”).

6. Mode: Deciding whether the oral assessment stands alone or is paired as a multimodal assessment. For example, pair with a written assignment, project, or practical task to illustrate metacognition or to deepen explanations of connections to course materials. Alternatively, oral pair with a higher stakes written exam to provide an opportunity for a more comprehensive illustration of knowledge (i.e., “You answered c) on question 14. Why?”).

Oral assessments can take varied forms, including interviews, group discussions, one-on-one conversations with instructors, simulations, debates, role-plays, and real-time problem-solving tasks (Quinlan et al. 2025). Regardless of your format, oral assessments ensure validity when they are intentionally designed to align with learning outcomes, clearly define expectations, and provide scaffolded opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning (Nallaya et al. 2024).

Spotlight on Oral Assessments at Laurier – TEI’s Faculty Learning Community

At TEI’s October GenAI and Academic Integrity Faculty Learning Community session with senior Chemistry lab coordinator, and Innovation in Teaching winner, Sherilyn Van De Wynckel, we learned about oral assessments as a low-stakes assessment approach in a first year Chemistry Lab.

Sherilyn shared how students sign up for scheduled open-book oral conversations in her lab that are guided by pre-shared questions. Students are also encouraged to prepare notes and practice with their peers in advance. During dedicated time in lab sessions, each student answers a randomized set of questions and is assessed in real time using a detailed rubric focused on content and communication. Students complete oral assessments twice during the semester, which allows for reflection and helps to reduce anxiety and build student confidence.

During this FLC session, instructors were curious about methodologies and approaches, including grading, scheduling, and the potential challenges posed by oral assessments. 

Integrating Oral Assessments in your Course Context

When integrating oral assessments into your course, prepare and discuss guidelines with key logistics, expectations, and specific learning goals to support a shared understanding of what will occur during the oral assessment (Nallaya et al. 2024). Aligned with these guidelines, develop your rubric to ensure grading consistency, clarify expectations and performance standards, and provide feedback opportunities so that students can better prepare. (Stephenson et al. 2025, Ragupathi & Lee 2020). 

When planning oral assessments, consider key logistics such as:

• Assessment length: time per student, duration of entire assessment, buffer time between sessions, and class size.
• Scheduling and time slots: booking method, student self-sign-up vs. instructor scheduling.
• Documentation: notetaking, rubrics, audio/video recording, storage, and privacy considerations.
• Accommodations and Supports: missed or rescheduled assessments, accessibility needs, language, or anxiety support.
• Teaching support: availability and role of teaching assistants, training or calibration needs.
• Technology setup: platforms or tools for virtual assessments, backup plans for technical issues.
• Environment: location, privacy, minimizing distractions, and ensuring equitable conditions.
• Class activities: opportunities and class activities for students to prepare and practice.

More examples of Oral Assessments:

• One-to-one interactive oral assessment as the major final assessment.
• Example of online oral assessments.
• Mid-term oral examinations in large lecture courses.
• Ways of pairing oral assessments with exams or written work.

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