SOCIAL SCIENCES AND EDUCATION RESEARCH REVIEW, VOL. 9, ISSUE 1 – 2022, 7-16

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6794376

Abstract
COVID-19 gave universities and colleges no choice. They had to switch to digital teaching and
introduce home-based exams as a substitute for ordinary school exams. At the same time, the
ambitions were to maintain the student’s learning outcomes and ensure the exam grade measured the
students’ knowledge and skills. With data from a Norwegian business school, this paper will analyse
if home based exams provide other results than traditional school exams with closed books. The
chosen method is to compare achievements before and during the pandemic and link the performance
to academic skills in other subjects and from upper secondary school. The results suggest that the
measurement of grades changed under COVID-19. This applies to the quantitatively oriented subjects
and the non-quantitative oriented subjects. This is useful knowledge since students’ grades are used
for ranking for further studies and professional careers.
Keywords: COVID-19, Exam design, home-based exam, business students, students’ performance