Oral Exams Webinar - QUB

Philosophy Oral Exams - Webinar

Queen’s University Belfast (ONLINE)

Are you thinking of introducing oral exams into your philosophy assessment? Have you already successfully introduced them? Would you like to do so but are wondering about the logistics? Are you worried about how the students would respond? If the answer is “yes” to any of these, the QUB Philosophy Oral Exam webinar is the event for you!

The philosophy department at Queen’s Belfast have recently introduced oral exams in multiple modules across both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. This has initially been motivated by AI-proofing our assessment methods, but was found to have lots of other much more significant benefits, such as developing students’ transferrable skills (e.g., job interviews), offering a higher variety of assessment methods, and a quicker turnaround for marking. Based on the surveys we’ve conducted, the response from students has been really positive too.

While these exams are pretty standard outside the Anglosphere, they seem to be still relatively novel in English-speaking philosophy departments. Quite a few fellow colleagues from other universities have been asking us how it all worked. Others have had useful tips from their own experience of introducing oral assessments. So we thought it would be useful to organise a quick webinar to create a space where best-practice tips can be shared.

The (informal) webinar will take place online on 23 June 2026 at 13:00 UK time and will last approximately an hour. It will include:

1)        A quick presentation on the implementation of the oral exam process at QUB

2)        Testimonials from our own students

3)        Q&A + discussion about other people’s experiences of oral exams

If you are interested in attending, please e-mail [email protected] to receive a Teams link

All the best

Matyáš Moravec & Suzanne Whitten