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Some second-year Nanyang Technological University (NTU) students have to retake their module's final test after the paper was posted on the school learning portal about 20 minutes before the students were set to take it.

NTU School of Social Sciences has confirmed about the incident and apologised to the students for having to retake the test.

Test paper leaked

According to a student, who wants to be known as K, the Year 2 Psychology students sat for the final test for the core module HP2200, Biological Psychology, on Nov. 7 at 9:30am. The test takes up 40 per cent of the course grade.

About 20 minutes before the start of the test, students were notified that the question paper was uploaded on NTU’s online learning portal, Blackboard.

Students who saw the notification on their phones could see the exam questions prior to the start of the test.

"I did not see the notification from blackboard myself," K told Mothership, "but multiple students notified the professor and undergraduate office of NTU of the leak of the paper."

Notified to retake the paper three days later

Three days after the paper, on Nov. 10 at 5:06pm, the students received an email from the school informing them that all students have to retake the test on Nov. 14.

The email, seen by Mothership, shared that the school and programme had met to discuss the incident.

It added that there was "sufficient evidence to suggest the violations of integrity of the final test before the actual physical test took place".

From there, they arrived at a consensus to void the initial test conducted on Nov. 7 and to have all students to retake the test.

In the later part of the evening on Nov. 10, the school sent another email saying the school has received feedback on the retest scheduled for the coming Monday.

Following this, a dialogue session over Zoom was scheduled to listen to and address students' concerns on Nov. 11.

According to K, at its real time peak, more than 140 students were on the Zoom call.

During the session, there were discussions about changing the content tested or reducing the format of the test, K shared.

In addition, they also took a poll to decide on the best date for the retake.

Additional stress

"There was general outrage about the announcement having to redo the paper. Many other students cited feeling extra stressed in response to this," K commented about the general sentiment of students involved.

However, Chia Wai Mun, the Associate Chair (Academic) of the School of Social Sciences, told Mothership that after reaching out to the affected students, the school understands that the students "accepted that having a retest is a fair thing to do".

K had hoped for "NTU to appropriately address their mistake (in leaking the paper before the examination) and (for making) students pay for their administrative error by redoing the entire paper."

"However, this dialogue was used instead to formally tell students that there was nothing they can do about their mistakes," K shared with Mothership.

K said that the initial retest date (Nov. 14) falls on the "busiest week of the school semester with multiple assignments due" for students.

K added that the Psychology cohort has at least three major submissions before the examination – for modules HW0208 Academic Communications in the Social sciences, HP2500 Personality Psychology, and CC0007 Science and Technology for Humanity – on top of studying for their finals papers.

It appears that the date of retest has yet been confirmed as Chia told Mothership that the school is still working with the students on a suitable date.

A thorough review on exam procedures

"We are very disappointed with what happened. We apologise to the students for having to retake the test, but this is necessary to ensure fairness to everyone," Chia said in the statement to Mothership.

Chia added that most students took the test at a lecture theatre and a group of Covid-19 positive students took an online version of the test administered by the undergraduate office. All students took the same paper and started simultaneously.

The school "learned later" that the test paper was leaked onto the platform before the test started.

Chia did not specify when the school found out about the leak or any further details about the incident.

The school confirmed that 218 students were affected.

"We will conduct a thorough review of our exam procedures and take necessary measures to avoid similar incidents in future," Chia said.

Quotes from K were edited for clarity. Top image via Google Maps by Andy Chua.