Making oral assessments inclusive

However, without careful design, they may also increase anxiety, raise concerns about bias, and create unintended barriers. This toolkit helps teaching staff make informed, inclusive choices when using oral assessment, particularly at points of high-stakes assessment or where concerns about authenticity and AI use are prominent.

This toolkit provides guidance on designing and delivering robust and inclusive oral assessments (including vivas*) in higher education, particularly for UG or PGT students. It outlines key principles, design choices, and practical considerations to help staff use oral assessment in ways that are fair, transparent, and consistent, while supporting diverse students. 

*Some content is relevant to doctoral vivas too. 

What are oral assessments? 

Oral assessments involve students demonstrating their learning through spoken interaction. As Joughin (2010) indicates, oral assessments may take the form of presentations (such as a report to a seminar on a pre-arranged topic), interrogations (such as vivas where students are questioned about their written work or course content by a module convenor or examiner) or applications (where a student simulates a course of action, such as a law student in a moot court).  

Oral assessments may require a student to work individually, in pairs or in small groups, and may be standalone assessments or linked to a written or practical component that provides a basis for discussion. What many oral assessments share is an emphasis on reasoning and the ability to explain or apply knowledge in real time; some formats also incorporate dialogue through questioning or interaction. 

Benefits of oral assessments 

Well-designed oral assessments can: 

• Encourage deep engagement with course material and conceptual understanding 
• Support the development of communication, reasoning, and professional skills 
• Enable examiners to probe understanding, clarify ambiguities, and explore thinking processes 
• Reduce some forms of academic misconduct by assessing understanding rather than reproduction, particularly where responses are generated in real time and can be probed or followed up (e.g. in-person or live online formats) 
• Offer authentic assessment aligned with professional or disciplinary practices. 

Challenges and concerns 

Despite their benefits, oral assessments raise several well-documented concerns: 

• Student anxiety: Many students report high levels of stress, particularly when oral assessment is unfamiliar or high stakes. 
• Bias and unfairness: Because oral assessments are non-anonymous, there may be real or perceived bias linked to accent, language fluency, gender, ethnicity, disability, or cultural communication norms. 
• Consistency: Without clear structures, variability can arise between examiners and within an examiner’s practice (e.g. differences in questioning, prompting, or interpretation of criteria), leading to inconsistent marking across students. 
• Resource demands: Oral assessments can be time-intensive and require coordination, appropriate spaces, technology, and trained staff, including professional services staff who need to be familiar with procedures. 

Inclusive design requires these risks to be anticipated and actively mitigated, rather than addressed only through individual adjustments. 

Further reading: Joughin, G. (2010). A short guide to oral assessment. Leeds Met Press in association with University of Wollongong. 

Inclusive design principles for oral assessment 

Research and practice point to several principles that improve fairness and inclusion in oral assessments: 

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Design oral assessments from the outset to be accessible to all students. This includes communicating clarity of purpose, predictable structures, and flexibility in how learning is demonstrated, reducing reliance on individual adjustments. 

Transparency and clarity 

• Provide clear assessment criteria and marking rubrics in advance 
• Recommended marking criteria include knowledge of the subject, clarity and quality of response, thinking on the spot, and application of theory to practice  
• Explain what the oral assessment is (and is not) assessing 
• Share the structure, timing, and types of questions students can expect 
• Standardised rubrics and structured question plans can help mitigate bias and increase student confidence. 

Scaffolding and preparation

Students benefit from explicit preparation for oral assessment, particularly if they are unfamiliar with the format. Effective approaches include: 

• Practice or mock oral assessments (e.g. structured questioning or simulated oral exams; noting that research degree vivas are a distinct format)  
• Opportunities to observe or critique exemplar oral assessments 
• Communication skills support focused on answering questions and explaining reasoning 
• Clear guidance on the role of preparatory written work, if used. 

Further reading

• In-person accessible viva voce guide (University of Cambridge) 
• Guidance on inclusive practice for vivas (Glasgow Caledonian University) 

Choice and flexibility 

Where possible, offering choice can support inclusion. Examples include: 

• Allowing individual or paired oral assessments* 
• Linking the oral assessment to a topic chosen by the student 
• Combining oral assessment with written or other modes to balance strengths 

*Paired oral assessments – where students work with a partner to complete the task – can offer a more authentic, collaborative, engaging, and inclusive way to evaluate students by fostering deeper learning, real-time feedback, employability skills, academic integrity, and confidence through dynamic, real-world communication.  

Sensory adjustments for comfort and focus

Sensory-adjusted assessment spaces (e.g. softer lighting, reduced noise) support comfort and concentration; allowing quiet stim/fidget tools* helps some candidates regulate attention during oral responses without affecting assessment standards. 

* There are a range of inexpensive stim and fidget tools available, including options made from biodegradable, eco-friendly materials derived from renewable resources. 

Providing clear information in advance 

Sharing information about the format and criteria (including whether regulation tools* are permitted) reduces anxiety and cognitive load, enabling candidates to focus on demonstrating knowledge rather than managing uncertainty. 

* Regulation tools are items or strategies that help someone manage anxiety, sensory input, attention, or cognitive load so they can think clearly and perform at their best. Examples include:  

• Remind students to bring water and stim/fidget tools and noise-reducing earplugs (where appropriate) 
• Referring to brief bullet-point notes (where permitted), with clear expectations about their use (e.g. as prompts rather than scripts) to support engagement and responsive answering, rather than reading verbatim. 
• Pausing briefly to breathe or regulate before answering 
• Using grounding strategies (e.g. slow breathing) 

When these expectations and permissions are made explicit, candidates are less likely to worry about “doing something wrong” or being judged for self-regulation. 

• Practice or mock orals with chosen supports (such as stim tools or pauses) build familiarity and confidence and help candidates identify what enables their best performance. 
• Built-in breaks and movement options during longer oral assessments support emotional regulation, working memory, and sustained verbal reasoning. 
• Technology-supported elements (e.g. visual prompts or short pre-recorded segments) reduce pressure on real-time verbal fluency and provide alternative routes to expressing understanding. 

Examiner awareness and training

Staff conducting oral assessments should be supported to: 

• Recognise and mitigate implicit bias (this could be through bias tests such as the Harvard Implicit Association Test) as a personal reflective activity.   
• Develop awareness that anxiety, disability, and language background can affect how students perform, and that clear, fair assessment structures help remove barriers for everyone. 
• Use inclusive questioning techniques and consistent follow-up prompts. For instance: For instance, consistent assessor behaviour (e.g. steady tone, posture, and attention across candidates) helps reduce anxiety and avoids misinterpretation of non-verbal cues. 
  • Eye contact should not be treated as a proxy for engagement or understanding, as norms vary across neurodivergent, cultural, and linguistic contexts. Although expectations around eye contact may exist in some UK professional contexts, using it as an indicator of engagement risks disadvantaging some students and should be avoided in evaluation or assumptions about competence. 
  • Clear verbal prompts (e.g. allowing pauses, repeating questions) are preferable to non-verbal signals, reducing ambiguity and cognitive load. 
  • Self-regulatory behaviours (e.g. looking away, using a stim tool, adjusting posture) support concentration and should not influence assessment judgements. 

• Using more than one examiner, and recording oral assessments where feasible, can support fairness and transparency. Where audience size is not integral to the learning outcomes, consider offering flexibility in who is present (e.g. a smaller audience or a support person). 

Further reading

• A review of the literature concerning anxiety for educational assessments 
• Take exam anxiety seriously and do something about it' 
• Nieminen, J.H. Unveiling ableism and disablism in assessment: a critical analysis of disabled students’ experiences of assessment and assessment accommodations. Higher Education, 85, 613–636 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00857-1 
• Exploring the Relationship Between Language Barrier and the Poor Performance of BAME International Students in the UK 
• Anticipatory support and reasonable adjustments for oral assessments - Learning and Teaching Hub 
• Fostering Inclusive Approaches to Oral Presentation Assessments: Student and Staff Perspectives on Presentation Style 

Designing the assessment task 

Inclusive oral assessments are purposefully aligned with learning outcomes. Key design questions include: 

• What knowledge, skills, or attributes are best assessed orally? 
• How will depth and breadth of learning be balanced? 
• How will students demonstrate understanding rather than recall? 
• A common inclusive approach is to pair a short written submission or presentation with an oral discussion. The written element provides structure and reduces cognitive load, while the oral element allows exploration of reasoning, application, and synthesis.  

Conducting and marking oral assessments 

Inclusive practice includes: 

• Use consistent structures and time allocations, including clear logistical preparation (e.g. pre-submitting and pre-loading presentations or posters where appropriate) to avoid delays and reduce unnecessary student stress. 
• Use a shared question bank among all examiners, aligned to learning outcomes, with open-ended prompts that encourage critical thinking. Avoid overly specific questions that can lead to memorised answers and reduce spontaneity, so students respond based on understanding rather than recall. 
• Allow oral assessments to be open-book where appropriate, letting students bring brief notes to reduce anxiety about memorisation. To maintain spontaneity and authentic responses, provide only broad question themes in advance rather than highly specific questions, and clarify that notes are intended as prompts rather than for reading verbatim. 
• Allowing brief thinking or note-taking time during the assessment. 
• Recording assessments where appropriate to support moderation and review, where resources and cohort size make this feasible. 

Feedback can be delivered orally immediately after the assessment, provided it is clear, respectful, and aligned to published criteria; the marker should explicitly address each item of the criteria when delivering feedback and give the students an opportunity to ask questions at the end. 

Oral assessment alongside other methods 

Oral assessment should rarely be the sole means of assessment across a programme. Combining oral assessments with written, practical, or group-based tasks provides multiple ways for students to demonstrate learning and reduces inequitable pressure on any single mode. 

Further help

• Inclusive Education Training Programme – useful in general but particularly modules on Disparities in Educational Outcomes (20 minutes) and Embracing inclusive education: a guide to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) (45 minutes) 
• Feedback and assessment resources - UCL HEDS (Arena) 
• HEDS Faculty Partnership Teams 

References and further reading

A. Fenton. (2025). Reconsidering the Use of Oral Exams and Assessments: An Old Way to Move Into a New Future. Educational Researcher, 54(7), 430-436. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X251333638 (Original work published 2025) 

Joughin, G. (2010). A short guide to oral assessment. Leeds Met Press in association with University of Wollongong. 

Roberts C, Sarangi S, Southgate L, Wakeford R, Wass V. Oral examinations-equal opportunities, ethnicity, and fairness in the MRCGP. BMJ. 2000 Feb 5;320(7231):370-5. doi: 10.1136/bmj.320.7231.370. PMID: 10657339; PMCID: PMC1127149. Oral examinations—equal opportunities, ethnicity, and fairness in the MRCGP - PMC 

Young A Son (2016). Interaction in a paired oral assessment: Revisiting the effect of proficiency. Papers in Language Testing and Assessment Vol. 5, Issue 2. DOI:10.58379/LZZZ5040 

Zoe Stephenson, Nicole Johnson-Glauch & Sam Cruchley (2025) Interventions and facilitators of oral assessment performance in higher education: a systematic review, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 50:7, 1140-1153. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2025.2504621  

Joanna Tai, Rola Ajjawi & Anastasiya Umarova (2021): How do students experience inclusive assessment? A critical review of contemporary literature, International Journal of Inclusive Education https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2021.2011441  

Explore more Arena (HEDS) resources

Using inclusive language in education toolkit: a starting point to generate confidence to engage with different groups. 

Supporting neurodiversity in education toolkit: drawn from Supporting Neurodiversity: Handbook for Research Supervisors and Personal Tutors Handbook (UCL staff only). Resources include Empowering Learning: Presentations and Group Collaboration, some simple strategies to aid inclusive group work.  

How to plan for tailored adjustments in Postgraduate research: guidance and tool for students and supervisors to plan adjustments using an activity-based modular design to inform their Reasonable Academic Adjustments.  

Authors: Manjula Patrick and Liz Ralph-Morrow 

Reviewers: Jason Davies, Jenny Griffiths, Nephtali Marina Gonzalez and Fergus Green 

You are welcome to use this guide if you are from another educational facility, but you must credit the UCL Arena Centre.  

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