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Supervision on Combination Exams

Faculty: Arts. Degree Programme: Media Studies. Study level: all. Class size: all.

Motivation for the Activity

The Combination exam is a type of examination that we increasingly make use of at Media Studies. Though many teachers and students only have a vague idea of the opportunities offered and requirements made by this form of exam. We have simply lacked someone who reflected on the opportunities/challenges and drew on the experience that is already to be found - among other things in the literature.

Description of the Activity

The activity simply consists of a guideline in the form of a Word template. The intention is for the course lecturer to download, adapt and hand out the guideline to the students.

  • The template is only useful for those exams which consist of a combination of a written synopsis and an oral defence (the term "defence" is deliberately not used in the template’s text).
  • Based on the academic regulation’s description of the specific course, the lecturer has the task of editing and completing the text in the template so it becomes a complete guideline.

Once this has been done the guideline is distributed to the course students.

Advantages of the Template

The advantage of the template are as follows:

  • It takes time to make a good guideline and there is no need for the individual teacher to 'reinvent the wheel' every time.
  • The teacher is invited to reflect on and decide on a number of questions because the template must be adapted to the course and the academic regulations.
  • A number of significant elements of the combination exam are made clear - something which is otherwise easily overlooked (for example, that the oral presentation must be thoroughly prepared and that the two separate 'products' should constitute a complete study).

Disadvantages of the Template

There are hardly any disadvantages with the template in itself, but the combination exam after this recipe is quite time-consuming and resource-demanding for both the students and the assessors.


Guideline Template 

This is a template to a guideline text about combined exams (written + oral). The text of the template is directed at students, but the teacher has to adjust the text.