Assessment strategies and design tend to shift in relation to different educational changes around disciplinary pedagogy, educational technology, or workplace skill needs. With generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs) there has been a turn towards more oral assessment strategies in courses depending on the discipline.
These oral assessment strategies need to be designed in an accessible way, in that they are aware of student accommodation needs, and supportive of lived experiences. This resource speaks to Interactive Oral Assessments (IOAs) to define the scope of these assessments, and to give space to reflect on accessible design considerations that should be taken into account.
Dublin City University defines Interactive Oral Assessments as “a two-way conversation using work-based or professional scenarios to stimulate a free-flowing discussion.” This definition emphasizes this assessment in scope as more of a conversation than a one-way presentation of ideas that usually happens within traditional presentation assignments. However, IOAs still share the same orality that is present in presentations, and depending on the design, may also involve bringing in notes or resources to help support conversation.
The other aspect emphasized in the above definition is that the conversation will be based on work that the student has previously done alone or in groups or based on a scenario that is professional in nature depending on the discipline and subject. The chart below will help differentiate between presentation assessment design and IOAs presentation design as typically seen in Brock courses.
| Parameter | Presentation | IOA |
|---|---|---|
| Length | Can be up to 30 minutes | Usually no more than 20 minutes |
| Resources | Slide deck, notes, other handouts and material objects | Notes or cue cards strongly encouraged |
| Audience | Lecture or seminar in front of peers and members of the teaching team or community | Usually only in front of members of teaching team either alone or with a peer or group from class |
| Format | One-way information sharing with possibility for Question and Answers at the end. Can also be pre-recorded with live Q&A | Conversational format centred around guided questions or previous work done |
| Scaffolding | Can be a presentation based on work previously done for the course or on new work not connected to other assignments or assessments | Conversation is based on work previously done for the course to demonstrate knowledge and nuance, or based on an analysis of scenarios that are professional in nature. |
Here are some considerations to keep in mind as you design interactive oral assessments for courses.
- Make sure the IOA aligns to the course learning outcomes and will help support skills and knowledge that learners would benefit from in your discipline. IOAs should not be used simply as a means to have students demonstrate learning under surveillance conditions. IOAs are supposed to support ability to talk about a topic or apply it to different situations, not to mimic a high-stakes testing environment.
- Be very clear in terms of the instructions provided to students, including the rubric on how they will be graded. This is a new type of assessment for the students as well as the members of the teaching team; the clearer you are about expectations and scope for everyone the more rewarding this assessment design will be.
- This is not to be designed like a thesis oral defense (or Viva) at the graduate level which are lengthy and are usually more high stakes than a conversation about disciplinary topics or work done for the course as seen in an IOA.
- Offer practice runs on an example scenario or give an exemplar of what the students can expect in the IOA assessment situation.
- Limit the IOA to about 10-15 minutes per group/individual. This will support students who may need breaks for longer group or oral work but also provide some scheduling awareness for members of the teaching team who are grading these.
- Have the IOA be done in small groups or individually in front of the teaching team. These assessments are not traditionally done in front of a larger class group.
- Allow students to bring a small page of notes or a cue card for high-level point recall. This will also encourage a more conversational feel and tone to the conversation and not an expectation that they need to recall all facts from the work they have done.
- Do not grade the IOA based on embodied engagements such as eye contact or pace of speech. Be aware that every learner has a different way of engaging and being in the world. Grading using terms like “articulate” or “speech is clear without hesitations”, or “confidence” assumes a neuro-normative student lived experience and may build in inequities in the assessment.
- Have an opportunity to record the conversation for grading or review opportunities. This can be done using Teams for example.
Droulers, M., Krautloher, A., & Shaeri, S. (2026). Interactive oral assessment: co-existence of formative and summative purposes. Teaching in Higher Education, 31(1), 67–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2025.2549945
Dublin City University. Interactive Oral Assessment: Implementation Guide.
Gibbs, K., McKay, L., & Park, E. (2026). Voices of preservice teachers: An evaluation of interactive online oral assessment to assess learning. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 63(3), 922–935. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2025.2507295
O’Riordan, F., Thangaraj, J., Girme, P., & Ward, M. (2026). Interactive oral assessment: Staff perceptions, challenges and benefits of this robust, authentic assessment design approach. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 63(2), 494–507. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2025.2477160
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