New online assessment among IIUM preclinical medical students: a firsthand experience

Introduction: iTa’leEM (Innovative teaching and learning environment system) is a learning management system, established since 2013 in International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). However, this system was not fully utilized by the Basic Medical Sciences (BMS) department, Faculty of Medicine. COVID-19 pandemic required the university to adopt Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL) for distant teaching, learning and assessment during the Movement Control Order (MCO). BMS department has decided to utilize iTa’leEM Quiz as the new synchronous online assessment platform for IIUM preclinical medical students. Evaluating students experience using this novel application as an alternative assessment is important for future planning and improvisation of the assessment method if needed. Objective: To assess the IIUM preclinical medical students experience during the synchronous online assessment using iTa’leEM Quiz. Methodology: Synchronous online assessments were completed by Year 1 (n=143) and Year 2 (n=140) students in 2 phases via iTa’LeEm Quiz. In each phase, students answered 4 papers of 25 multiple choice questions. Feedback on device used, location during assessment, overall assessment rating, iTa’leEM Quiz accessibility, image quality, requisite troubleshoot, accessibility and attempt of all questions, and encountered issues of this platform were collected for each phase via Google Forms. The data were analysed using IBM SPSS statistics 22.0. Results: The response rate ranged from 60.0% to 85.3%. Most students sat for their online assessment at home (91.7-98.9%) using laptop (66.4-84.5%). In general, the students were satisfied with the overall assessment using iTa’leEM Quiz. It was easily accessible and the image quality was very good. All students were able to access all questions and more than 95% attempted all questions. A few students (8.4-20.9%) encountered issue during the assessment, but only 3 to 5 individuals required technical troubleshoot. Conclusion: Based on feedback from the students, iTa’leEM Quiz proves to be a satisfactory platform for synchronous online assessment among IIUM preclinical medical students. Should ERTL is extended, this platform can retain as an alternative assessment tool