Assessment of class participation in online and offline learning environments: a qualitative investigation of teachers’ best practices and challenges

Class participation is an important indicator of student engagement. As research on assessing class participation is relatively scarce, questions of how to achieve reliability in assessing class participation and how to minimize subjectivity in the process remain to be addressed. As assessment approaches get updated in the era of Generative AI, there is a need to revisit the topic to uncover the various ways educators assess class participation in both physical and virtual classrooms. This study aimed to gather the best practices and challenges of higher education teachers in assessing class participation in online and offline (physical/face-to-face) learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 teachers from all 10 faculties in a university in Hong Kong. We found that strategies employed in assessing participation are associated with the type of learner, type of course, technology available, teachers’ training, support, and resources, the learning context, and intended learning outcomes. Findings also point to the potential of technology-enabled assessment in helping students achieve intended learning outcomes, with teachers playing a huge role in terms of ensuring constructive alignment among intended learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, and assessments. Recommendations to maximize the use of digital technologies in higher education are discussed.