Towards a Quality Assurance Framework for Online Assessments for Business Education Subjects in the FET Phase

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated a shift to online assessments for educational institutions worldwide and exacerbated challenges related to assess­ment implementation and processes. In South Africa, the quality of online assessments in schools remains a central concern, partly due to the lack of consensus on the criteria that establish such quality. The objective of this study is to establish a framework to create transparency and con­sistency when summative online assessments are applied in the FET band (Grades 10 to 12). The methodology em­ployed consists of a preliminary meta-study of research re­lated to online (summative) assessment, with a focus on quality assurance over a five-year period from 2018 to 2023, using one search engine.The main findings suggest that four dimensions are required to ensure quality assur­ance for online assessments: a policy dimension, which represents specific regulatory or statutory bodies to ensure quality assurance processes; presage factors, which are mainly concerned with infrastructure; the people involved (examination bodies, teachers, learners, and school man­agement teams); and the processes applied to ensure con­tinuous collection of information and monitoring of the strengths and weaknesses of the assessment process. The value of the proposed framework lies in the implementa­tion of online assessments that are learner-centred, authentic, trustworthy, and reliable. Moreo­ver, it supports quality assurance in the review and evaluation of online assessment procedures.