A Scoping Review of the Quality of e-assessment in Higher Education

The pandemic lockdowns led to a massive shift to digital learning for HEIs worldwide. Additionally, there was an increased focus on e-assessment and its potential role in motivating and enhancing student learning. However, despite this growing interest, there have been concerns from university stakeholders that e-assessment has brought with it several challenges. These are related to the technological tools used for assessment, students’ experiences, and perceptions of e-assessment as well as the outcome of these assessments. Considering the importance of quality in maintaining the integrity of e-assessment, this conceptual paper explores how the quality of e-assessment practices can be achieved in promoting the quality of learning. We employed Arksey and O’Malley's (2005) scoping review methodology, which allowed us to rapidly map the interplay between quality and e-assessment in the higher education landscape. The findings of the study point to the importance of contextualising the design of e-assessment, the potential of e-assessment to replace paper-based assessment and the under-development of eassessment capabilities. Recommendations regarding the improvement of e-assessment have also been drawn from the scoping review articles.