Oral Examinations of Structure and Function in General and Organic Chemistry Courses

General chemistry courses serve as foundational curriculum within most STEM undergraduate curricula, and hence, it is essential to assess student knowledge and application of learning outcomes for courses such as Introduction to Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. Within the United States, paper-and-pencil examinations are typical for measuring student understanding of course content. In this project, as an alternative to written examinations, we implemented individual oral examinations. The purpose of this article is to provide guidance on how to implement an oral examination component for student assessment. The example presented took place in two different chemistry courses at two small primarily undergraduate institutions in the Midwest. Here, faculty provide pre-examination information, including preparation for an oral examination in chemistry as well as how to deal with test anxiety in a new testing environment. Students' performances were individually evaluated based on a rubric. Topics of the oral examinations include introductory organic chemistry and infrared (IR) spectroscopy in General Chemistry and intermediate IR spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry (MS) in Organic Chemistry I.