The challenges of high stakes exit exams in higher education: A systematic literature review

Abstract

This literature review covers the challenges of high-stakes exit exams in higher education, student performance outcomes, equity, and teaching. Exit exams, designed to assess students’ readiness to graduate, have sparked a long-running debate on whether they are fair and effective. This review integrated data from different bodies of literature in order to elucidate the collective themes, including the inequitable effects on marginalized student groups, the potential for anxiety and stress and the uncertainty regarding signifier of student proficiency. The study consists of a systemic literature review of international peer-reviewed articles and educational policy reports written in the last 20 years. Some of the key findings were that while the intention behind exit exams is to ensure academic levels remain high, they can exacerbate inequalities that already exist, and may not accurately represent a student’s level of knowledge and skill. The review recommends more fair assessment practices and alternative forms of assessment rooted in whole student development. It also discussed the implications of, these concerns for education policy and practice, particularly in terms of the need to priorities tertiary students’ well-being in assessment design. This could mean using ongoing tests and other check-up methods with usual exit exams to better understand student skills. This article contributes to the ongoing debate regarding exit testing in higher education based on findings that may be additive to future research and policy aimed at equitable and effective testing in a multicultural educational environment.