by Jocasta Williams
As higher education institutions continue to strengthen assessment in the age of generative AI, interactive oral assessments are becoming an increasingly familiar part of the learning landscape. By asking students to explain their thinking, defend their decisions and respond to questions in real time, they offer educators greater assurance that students genuinely understand their work. But introducing interactive orals also raises an important question. Once the presentation is over, how do students understand why they received the mark they did? And how can educators provide feedback that’s specific, meaningful and grounded in what actually happened during the assessment?
Those were the questions Dr Wendy Lee, Senior Lecturer in the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications at UNSW Sydney, set out to answer. In her first-year Introduction to Engineering Design and Innovation course, students work in teams to solve an engineering problem before presenting and defending their solution in a live pitch. The assessment is intentionally authentic, reflecting the kind of presentations and client interactions they’ll encounter throughout their careers as engineers. As Dr Lee explains, “In our course, we’re helping future engineers build the skills they’ll need in industry. That includes learning how to confidently pitch an idea or present a solution, just as they will throughout their professional careers.”
For Dr Lee, however, designing an authentic assessment was only part of the challenge. She also wanted students to clearly understand how they had been assessed and, more importantly, to receive feedback that would help them improve each time they presented.
Around 250 to 300 first-year engineering students complete the course’s interactive oral assessment each time it’s offered. With presentations running concurrently across multiple examiners, maintaining consistency in marking became one of Dr Lee’s biggest priorities. Students naturally wanted to understand how they had been graded, while examiners needed a consistent way to apply the rubric across every presentation. Dr Lee also recognised the reality of examiner fatigue after hours of listening to presentations, making fairness and transparency increasingly difficult to maintain.
She explains, “My initial motivation really came down to two things. The first was assessment transparency. I wanted students to know exactly how they were being graded and to feel confident that the process was fair. The second was examiner fatigue, because with around 270 students, listening to presentations for hours at a time is a very real challenge.”
Recording each presentation through EchoReflect transformed that process. Examiners assessed directly against the rubric within the solution, linking their comments to timestamps and a searchable transcript to create a clear connection between each student’s performance, the feedback they received and the final mark.
The result was a more transparent assessment process for everyone involved. Students could see exactly how the rubric had been applied and understand the evidence behind each criterion, while examiners could have more meaningful conversations about performance rather than simply defending a mark. Because the presentations were delivered in groups, the recordings also provided a clear record of each student’s contribution, making it easier to identify who participated, how they contributed, and where support or intervention might be needed. That same evidence helped ensure participation could be assessed consistently and fairly across the cohort.
But transparency was only part of the story. As Dr Lee began using EchoReflect, she realised the recordings offered another benefit that was just as valuable: they transformed the quality of feedback students received. Rather than receiving a final grade accompanied by a handful of written comments, students could review their presentation alongside feedback linked directly to specific moments in the recording. Comments were no longer abstract observations or general advice; they became grounded in what the student had actually said and done during the presentation. By connecting feedback to timestamps, the rubric and the recording itself, students could clearly see how each comment related to their performance and understand exactly what they could do differently next time.
Rather than marking the end of the assessment, the feedback became the starting point for students to evaluate and refine their own presentation skills.
From there, the recordings created another opportunity for learning: student reflection. Watching themselves present allows students to notice things they would never have recognised in the moment. They become aware of their pace, their gestures, their voice projection and the way they engage with their audience. Rather than simply being told how to become better presenters, they’re able to critically evaluate their own performance and identify the habits they want to change.
That opportunity for self-reflection is particularly valuable in a first-year course. Dr Lee isn’t simply assessing whether students can pitch an engineering solution on one particular day; she’s helping future engineers develop professional skills they’ll continue building throughout their degree and into industry. Each presentation becomes another opportunity to refine those skills, making the recording just as valuable after the assessment as it is during it.
As interactive oral assessments become an increasingly important part of assuring student learning, recording them ensures they do more than simply verify what students know at a single point in time. By supporting transparency, meaningful feedback and ongoing reflection, EchoReflect extends the value of the interactive oral well beyond the presentation itself, transforming it from a moment of assessment into an opportunity for continuous learning.
Echo360 is the global edtech leader enabling transformative learning experiences for education and business through the AI-powered Echosystem: the world’s first and only Learning Transformation Platform (LTP) that delivers dynamic creation, engagement, and assessment of education and training at scale worldwide. With innovative authoring (EchoInk), video (EchoVideo), engagement (EchoEngage), assessment (EchoExam), and video-based skills practice and feedback (EchoReflect) the Echosystem is an interoperable, modular platform.
