The Deviated Role of the Online Home-Delivered Assessment during the has been Pandemic of Covid-19 : A case Study of the Experience of Palestine Technical University – Kadoorie (PTUK) in Assessing English Language Introductory Courses.
The aim of this study was to investigate the deviated role of the online home-delivered assessment during the has been pandemic situation of the Covid-19, and also to investigate, from the researcher’s point of view, and as a case study , the experience of Palestine Technical University – Kadoorie (PTUK) in assessing and evaluating English language introductory courses, namely, English (1) no. (15200106), English (2), no. (15200112), and Remedial English, no. (15200099). To achieve the purpose of this study , the researcher followed a qualitative analytical approach which was implemented for the available related research , which was casted in a relative chronological order , in a survey-like orientation . Findings of this study indicate that the role of the assessment process, through the online home-delivered mode , has been deviated and perverted because of the fact that a considerable number of students, learners, and exam-takers, all over the world, have been able to resort to various cheating practices and strategies that have negatively affected the maxims of reliability, validity, fairness, and equality ; these maxims have long been supposed to be safeguarded by and through any assessment process, and for them to be profoundly violated by the cheating practices , in the online home- delivered assessment process, resulted in doubtful educational judgments, unreal grades, misleading feedback , and ,in addition , an anticipated measurable learning outage and loss. Findings of this study also indicate that cheating practices, which have been enhanced by a considerable number of students , learners and exam- takers , have also yielded a moral and ethical outage because the tendency to cheat represents a perverted learning behavior that should be viewed , to the educational process, as dangerous and risky as that of the learning outage; within the same context , and as far as the investigative scope of this study is concerned; this study concludes that the tendency to cheat not only violates the maxims upon which any assessment process is built, but has also corrupted some human values that are supposed to be elevated by any assessment process such honesty, righteousness, equal opportunities , and self-dependence. Findings of this study indicate that the status of English language learning and teaching was so worrying if compared to the pre- pandemic situation, especially in a foreign setting. Findings of this study further indicates that the experience of Palestine Technical University –Kadoorie (PTUK) in assessing some of the English language introductory courses during the has been Pandemic of Covid -19 has not been so different from those experiences of other universities and colleges all over the world. Accordingly, this study recommends further empirical and diagnostic research to shed more understanding towards this ethical and moral dilemma.
