Work in Progress: Unannounced Frequent Examinations to contribute student learning and building academic integrity

Current world challenges require complex solutions from multifaceted and interdisciplinary developments. There is significant research that supports the idea that self-assessment is an intrinsic characteristic in human development. From the first seconds of breathing, humans test their experience to form and advance their knowledge. However, in the current western educational system, evaluations, a natural human process, have turned into activities that bring stress, anxiety, and nervousness to students. For this, researchers replace most of the set exams for unannounced constant examinations throughout the semester. Along with these, the course design included activities that supported students' knowledge to be prepared for the new type of examination. Researchers applied these examinations in two courses of structural analysis in civil engineering and one course of Structures in architecture, with a total of 77 students. At the end of the semester, we conducted a survey to learn students' perceptions and their feelings with these types of evaluations. The results indicate students find unannounced constant evaluations to be helpful in their learning process. Although students were nervous at the beginning of the semester, the supporting activities throughout the semester were helpful to improve their examination performance, and their overall course performed. Finally, students feel more confident with their knowledge after the course due to the unannounced constant examinations. The authors discuss the possible factors driving the results, next steps and explore the avenues academia could take to form better pedagogic strategies in the direction of building academic integrity. Implications for research and practice are provided.