Abstract
The Markov chain (MC) technique is applied to an online
invigilated assessment situation to predict the writing time
in a typical university setting. Different students' writing
times cannot be determined accurately in advance and are
associated with randomness. This preliminary study
simulates data related to the time to download the question
paper and the writing time, from a normal distribution. The
time variable is simulated to have a reasonably good
approximation of the real settings where most students’
writing times are spread around the expected value,
namely the mean. Simulations are conducted based on the
experience and knowledge of researchers in the online
teaching and learning environment. Computer simulations
demonstrate that the writing time estimates depicted a
stable convergence, thus giving clear insights for
optimising online assessment implementation. The
findings showed that the average writing time of a selected
trial reaches a stable value at 1.498 hours (89
minutes) within the confidence interval [0.6, 2.5], at 95%.
Therefore, these results offered a more realistic range of
feasible times to guide academic practitioners on the
planning and implementation of invigilated online
assessments.