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Au Canada, l’examen de synthèse constitue une étape déterminante dans la majorité des programmes de doctorat (Ph. D.). Il s’avère pour certaines personnes étudiantes une épreuve anxiogène, comprise comme un rite de passage du doctorat, grade universitaire certifiant notamment l’aptitude à contribuer, par une recherche scientifique de haut niveau, à un champ donné. Le format de l’examen de synthèse et sa nomenclature diffèrent d’un programme à l’autre. Le processus et les attentes qui lui sont associés restent souvent flous pour les personnes étudiantes ou encadrantes, ce qui se répercute dans la littérature scientifique par une lacune dans les connaissances à son sujet. Dans le cadre de cet article, nous avons tenté 1) d’approfondir les connaissances sur l’examen de synthèse, 2) de décrire l’expérience de personnes doctorantes, 3) d’identifier des conseils pratiques pour favoriser la réussite de l’examen de synthèse. Les propos de douze personnes doctorantes de la Faculté d’éducation de l’Université de Sherbrooke, recueillis par l’entremise d’entretiens semi-dirigés, révèlent que l’expérience de l’examen de synthèse s’avère positive. La catégorisation et l’analyse de contenu des récits mettent par ailleurs en évidence l’importance de l’entourage, des pauses, des deuils et de la souplesse pour favoriser la réussite de l’examen.

The realities of the 21st century have led professors and lecturers to renew their learning assessment practices so that they are more adapted to and contextualized in the current professional world. Despite advances in teaching and learning, assessment methods may still deviate from practice in authentic contexts. Although some instructors are already familiar with more authentic assessments, most are accustomed to using exams as standard practices to test students’ achievement of course objectives and essays to prepare students for research or written argumentation. Despite their benefits, such typical assessments often lack authenticity and do not develop the full potential of students’ 21st-century learning or literacy skills such as communication, creativity, or working with technologies. Over the past decade, we have been witnessing the beginnings of a broader reflection on teaching, learning, and evaluating with technologies, including more authentic assessments. This reflective essay will present how technologies make it possible to diversify assessment methods, resulting in enhanced authenticity and development of 21st-century learning and literacy skills. Authentic assessment methods with technologies will be illustrated, e.g., recorded video presentations, explanatory interviews with descriptive assessment grids, PechaKucha presentations, blog posts, and social media and e-portfolios, with examples from several disciplines. Authors will also explain how proposing a number of methods to students for the same assessment may help answer their various needs and preferences without increasing instructors’ grading load. Furthermore, authors will discuss how diversifying assessment methods with technologies often results in a transformation of assessment modalities. Beyond assessments as an evaluation of knowledge and/or skills at a fixed schedule, authentic assessments with technologies may become continuous or iterative processes with multiple feedbacks from instructors, thereby combining synchronous interactions and/or discussions with asynchronous reflections to improve students’ involvement and active learning.