Inside the Classroom: How Weekly Secure Quizzes Reshape Tutor Work and Student Equity

Abstract Book of the 11th International Conference on Research in Education

Year: 2026

[PDF]

Inside the Classroom: How Weekly Secure Quizzes Reshape Tutor Work and Student Equity

Dr. Tamara Voninski

ABSTRACT:

Secure assessments are increasingly adopted in higher education as institutions respond to concerns about academic integrity, generative AI, and large scale teaching. While these systems are often framed as necessary safeguards, far less attention has been paid to how they reshape the everyday labour, pedagogical practices, and emotional experiences of tutors who implement them. This study examines how tutors in a large first year foundational unit at an Australian university navigate the demands of secure weekly in-person quizzes, and how these assessments intersect with issues of workload, relational teaching, and equity. Drawing on semi structured interviews with tutors, the study explores three interconnected dimensions of tutor experience: (1) the additional preparation, monitoring, and emotional labour generated by secure assessment formats; (2) the ways tutors interpret and enact institutional integrity policies in the context of generative AI; and (3) tutors’ observations of how secure quizzes affect diverse student groups, including those facing linguistic, or accessibility challenges. The analysis highlights tensions between compliance driven assessment design and tutors’ commitments to care, fairness, and meaningful learning. Findings suggest that secure assessments redistribute pedagogical and emotional labour onto tutors, often without adequate institutional recognition or support. Tutors also report navigating complex relational dynamics as they balance student wellbeing with integrity enforcement. The study contributes to international conversations about assessment futures by foregrounding the voices of sessional educators and offering implications for more equitable, pedagogically grounded assessment design in the age of AI.

Keywords: Emotional labour; Assessment security; Tutors; Generative AI; SoTL