The validity, reliability, academic integrity and integration of oral assessments in higher education : A systematic review

Various factors such as regulatory body mandates, graduate employability challenges, decreasing student engagement and increasing academic misconduct in higher education have motivated universities to explore alternative approaches to teach and assess. Accordingly, the oral assessment has taken precedence in many contexts as a popular form of assessment. Although literature highlights the strengths of oral assessments, there are also reservations among some scholars as it is found to contribute to issues pertaining to validity and reliability. This paper reports on a systematic review undertaken in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to explore the extent of oral assessment validity, reliability and capacity to address academic misconduct in higher education. A total of 2,657 journal articles from ERIC, Web of Science, Scopus and A+ Education databases were imported into Covidence for screening of titles, abstracts and full texts. Seventeen studies were deemed suitable for inclusion in this systematic review. The analysis identified that the validity, reliability and capacity of the oral assessment to reduce academic integrity breaches were dependent on whether it has been designed, scaffolded, and implemented well. [Author abstract]