Exams Versus Coursework
The discussion
Priya: I think our department should replace final exams with coursework entirely. Three-hour exams mostly measure how well you cope with stress, and I know people who understand the material perfectly but freeze in the hall.
Tomasz: I'd keep exams, honestly. Coursework is easy to get help with, or to outsource, and at least in an exam we know the work is the student's own. Employers also trust a degree more when they know it was tested under controlled conditions.
Amara: I'm somewhere in between. In my engineering modules the coursework projects taught me far more than any exam did, because I had to actually build something and fix it when it failed. But I agree with Tomasz that some checks on authorship are needed.
Priya: That's fair, but authorship can be checked with short oral presentations on the project. A ten-minute conversation reveals very quickly whether someone did the work.
Tomasz: Hmm, I hadn't thought about oral checks. If every coursework piece came with a viva, I'd be more comfortable reducing the exam weighting, maybe to forty percent rather than zero.
Amara: That sounds like a sensible compromise. Mixed assessment with a viva would suit different kinds of learners and still keep the degree credible.