## 4 Discussion
The change from on-site to online was sudden and unexpected due to the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, barring any premeditation or preparation [48; 50]. Instructors preparing the evaluation items had no experience in designing online exams [22], and there was strong student pressure for fair assessment methods [62; 63]. This may have prompted teachers to design exams that were substantially easier, thus attempting to compensate for any possible detriment caused by the sudden shift to a methodology which the instructors were ill-prepared for [50]. In addition, a new and unknown assessment environment was naturally mistrusted [51]. The second research objective sought to compare the correlations in the second cohort with their self-assessment of perceived stress, difficulty, and satisfaction, as well as academic performance. Surprisingly, perceived stress was significantly lower once the online exam had begun. Digital assessment environments are unknown for students, which would warrant a high degree of uncertainty, coupled with potential technical issues which were a looming threat [64]. This could easily have spiraled into greater student insecurity and, hence, stress [42; 65]. Our results, however, indicate that once the exam has begun, stress levels are even lower than with on-site exams, and the security the student feels with the environment increases quickly. Once the exam is over, most students consider that there is little difference between on-site and online evaluation, and both prompt the same amount of stress, if not less for remote exams. Both are, in the student's perception, valid and fair assessment tools. These overly positive indicators explain that most students would like to repeat remote assessment, despite the fact that the remote proctoring method initially generated enormous mistrust among students, as [PERSON] et al. [54] have shown in their study. Once the initial uncertainty is overcome, the digital environment is reliable and safe for the student. Most students believe that in the future remote exams will be the most common type, yet another dimension in which we become increasingly accustomed to using digital technologies. This is a very optimistic outlook, given that it was the dramatic change that COVID-19 forced upon universities by pushing them into the age of remote learning [48; 50]. Student attitude has been welcoming and they have adapted quickly to the new environment, which is daily becoming more usual and satisfactory [66]. This is good news for universities that wish to expand this dimension in the near future. Perceived difficulty indicators clarify that online exams are significantly easier, which may have facilitated this broad acceptance of the evaluation system described here. Nonetheless, only 14.7% of students were aware of this. Even though a possible influence in the reduction of real difficulty in the exam is not ruled out, perceived difficulty remained unaltered for most students, deeming this influence insufficient to explain the overall results [11; 19; 48]. Another interesting result is that students who were more stressed during the exam obtained worse results, which is a relation that would appear to be expected [67]. Nonetheless, the stress suffered can be an element that caused the inferior grade, or a consequence of it. Those with higher grades were also most satisfied with the experience, perhaps showing that they were the ones that adapted best to the new methodology. Students who are savvy in digital technologies will tend to be more comfortable in situations like this, which could result in a less stressful experience, and hence greater overall satisfaction [32; 49].