This study determines the assessment practices used by teaching staff in Saudi universities, explores how these assessment practices have changed during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, and investigates how teaching staffs’ priorities and preferences for education on assessment during the pandemic were shaped. To support professional development, the study also aims to raise teaching staffs’ awareness of assessment practices. Teaching staff in Saudi universities were invited to complete the Approaches to Classroom Inventory survey. The results showed that the most highly endorsed practices included giving feedback, linking assessments to learning objectives and learning outcomes, using scoring guides, and monitoring and revising assessment approaches. The least endorsed practices included mapping summative assessment to curriculum expectations, responding to the cultural and linguistic diversity of students, and accommodating students with special needs/exceptionalities in assessments. Further, during the pandemic, formative assessments were rarely used. Although faculty members from various colleges and fields of specialty showed similar patterns in endorsing assessment practices, they differed in their preferences and needs for assessment education.

In an era where conditions for education are rapidly changing globally, online assessment presents several opportunities as well as challenges in the higher education landscape. The forceful transition from face-to-face to online assessments, as part of the emergency implementation of online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has affected teaching, learning, and assessment experiences worldwide. This study explores how faculty members in Saudi universities secured their online assessment during phase one of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research aims were: 1) identifying faculty assessment practices before the onset of COVID-19 and comparing these with practices during the pandemic, and 2) identifying the major challenges faced by the faculty members of the study in securing their online assessment to ensure that academic integrity and assessment standards remained intact. Data were collected from seven university professors through a self-reporting survey, followed by semi-structured interviews. The faculty members found the pandemic period to be the best time to change their assessment methods, and incorporate innovative ideas that conformed to both their own beliefs and students’ needs. The factors that influenced the faculty’s assessment alterations were their personal beliefs and learnings from others’ experiences, in addition to the guidelines issued by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education. The results of this study have implications for the development of post-COVID-19 assessment practices and professional development priorities.

This paper reports on the design and management of an online self-access language learning (SALL) space that was used with a group of Saudi medical students to complement classroom-based learning. The aim was to increase the opportunities for communication and language practice and, more specifically, to help develop the learners’ language learning autonomy (Little, 1999). In a pre-study, a questionnaire and a focus group were used to collect information about the students’ needs and interests in language learning. The design of this space was informed by the students’ feedback on their language learning needs and styles as recommended by Breen (1986) and Marsh (2012). Desire2Learn, a widely used virtual learning environment, was used to provide learners with an online self-access center because of the many features it has which would help learners to take control of their learning. The learning resources and online tools included instant messaging (IM), a news stream, access to a facilitator and other learning support, moderated discussions, videos, images, activities and quizzes, as well as links to external materials and to free self-access language learning resources. A description will be provided of how the materials, the tools, and the facilities were integrated within this space along with the justification for each of the elements. A look ahead to how this study could be extended for use with all learners enrolled in the medical scheme of the university will be discussed at the end of the paper.

This research reports on the assessment of the improvement in the language learner autonomy (LLA) of a group of Saudi medicine students at tertiary level following an intervention that aims to examine and enhance their LLA in a blended course. Thus, this study proposes a research model for the assessment of LLA in the 21st century and establishes a scale for its measurement. Because LLA is a combination of observable and non-observable behaviors, quantitative and qualitative methods were triangulated in a mixed method research to look at it through the learner voice and metacognition (process perspective) and through the learner gained test scores (product perspective). To overcome the problem that LLA is an unsteady state, the assessment model integrates summative and formative assessment methods. Findings show that the assessment of LLA helps to better understand the process of LLA enhancement and the potential factors that might influence learners' LLA.

Assessment approaches including assessment purposes, assessment processes, fairness, and measurement theory, and English teachers’ professional development needs remain underexplored in the Middle East and North Africa regions. This study provided empirical evidence on English language teachers approaches in the Saudi higher education context. A survey was used to examine the teachers’ current approaches to classroom assessment. A total of 287 subjects (191 women and 94 men) participated in the survey. The results revealed that both the male and female participants valued and endorsed assessments alike. However, female participants were found to value assessment purposes more than their male counterparts. Fairness in assessment approaches was the least valued item in teachers’ identified assessment approaches. Experienced teachers who identified themselves as competent in their role valued assessment fairness and measurement theory more than novice teachers. The present work broadens our knowledge on teachers’ assessment approaches in relation to gender, career stage, and academic position, which support interested researchers and policy-makers in decision-making regarding designing professional development programs.