The authenticity of ‘authentic’ assessment some faculty perceptions (original) (raw)
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Authentic Assessment as a Tool to Enhance Student Learning in a Higher Education Institution
Assessment, Testing, and Measurement Strategies in Global Higher Education, 2020
Authentic assessment plays a great role in enhancing students' learning and makes them competent in their study area. Studies indicate that assessment is authentic when the tasks have real-life value and students perform real-world tasks. Therefore, this chapter shows how lecturers practice authentic assessment to enhance students' learning in a higher education institution. To achieve this, the authors used a phenomenological qualitative research design. An interview was used to collect data. The result indicated that lecturers are highly dependent upon traditional assessment methods, which have no significant contribution to the competency of students. The practice of authentic assessment methods as a tool to enhance students' learning is limited. Therefore, the authors can conclude that enhancing students' learning using authentic assessment in their study areas is untenable if the lecturers continue to utilize their current assessment practices.
Authenticity in assessment: reflecting undergraduate study and professional practice
European Journal of Engineering Education, 2004
[Follow URL link above to find paper] The literature suggests that assessment is a powerful tool for influencing student study habits. It is also recognized that there is a tension between traditional forms of assessment and newer forms of assessment that offer a more authentic representation of practice, but are more complex and expensive to administer. The international trend in undergraduate engineering course accreditation to move to demonstration of attainment of graduate attributes poses new challenges in assessment of learning. A case study based on integrating assessment practices across the year levels of an engineering management studies stream in an undergraduate course is presented. Key features of the assessment portfolio include: the use of assessment in the first year as a foundational tool to establish student study habits and skills; the evolution of assessment tasks by the fourth year to reflect the world of professional practice and to allow students to demonstrate their integration of knowledge and skills; the weighting of assessment tasks to indicate the value attached to particular tasks; the structured inclusion of group work; a concern for student and staff workloads; the recognition of student diversity, in particular the needs of off-campus and mature-age students; and the matching of assessment tasks to professional accreditation requirements.
Authentic Assessment and Pedagogical Strategies in Higher Education
Problem statement: Researchers have noted that there is a mismatch between curriculum content and assessment practices in higher education. At the moment, the focus is still on the assessment of learning and not much on assessment for learning. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the implementation of authentic assessment in higher education in Malaysia. Approach: The study employed a qualitative research method and involved the use of instruments such as interviews, document analysis and unobtrusive classroom observations to collect the relevant data in the classrooms of a three-credit hour course from a Masters degree programme. The total population consisted of 2 lecturers and 20 students from the two selected intact TSL 752 classes. Results: In this study, researchers identified different types of authentic assessment with the suitability to certain pedagogical strategies, their effects on students' learning and the appropriate procedures of conducting authentic assessments. The findings indicated that alternative and authentic assessment have more acceptance from students and should therefore be viewed as an alternative to traditional standardized assessment. Conclusion/Recommendations: The study identified that assessment strategies should be closely related to teaching and learning. Assessing authentic performances should become integral parts of the instructional cycle and feedback provided by the lecturer and peers should be formative in order to help the students assess their strengths and weaknesses, identifying areas of needed growth and mobilizing current capacity.
Authentic Assessment An Inquiry into the Assessment Process at Master's Degree Level
The purpose of this chapter is to analyze and discuss the concept of authentic assessment at Master's degree level. Firstly, this chapter attempts to provide a better understanding of the Master's program within the context of the Bologna system by providing a short historical perspective on the evolution of the Bologna process, as well as trying to identify the true beneficiaries. The chapter also addresses some of the challenges of the assessment process with two main themes: types and aim of the assessment process. Furthermore, the authors focus on the role of the authentic assessment, at a Master's degree level-as reflected by students' perception and correlated with its intended purpose. Drawing on the findings, the authors attempt to shape a description of what authentic assessment is and what it should be at Master's degree level.
HOW CAN WE USE ICT TO ASSESS COMPETENCES IN HIGHER EDUCATION: THE CASE OF AUTHENTICITY
The assessment of competences requires an approach where knowledge, abilities and attitudes are integrated, naturally implying the resource to a variety of assessment strategies. Within this context we have seen the emergence of what has been called by several authors the Assessment Culture. Necessarily, it should make use of a variety of different assessment strategies and tools, so as to better assess performance in authentic activities that should be as similar as possible to the contexts in which the competences will be implemented. This new learning landscape has promoted the implementation of new alternative assessment strategies aligned with the most recent paradigms of assessment design [1]. These alternative assessment strategies are characterized by an integration of assessment into the learning process, a high level of student participation, the development of tasks leading to the production of artifacts, and contextualization in real world applications [2]. Moreover , wi...
Authenticity in Learning, Teaching and Assessment
MSOR connections, 2024
Mathematics graduates traditionally are recognised for their problem solving, critical thinking, and analytic skills. However, the methods often used to hone these skills at university are often abstract and decontextualized. This can often create a disconnect between expected capabilities of a mathematics graduate from employers and the actual problem-solving skills required in their career. In this case-study we will outline how the programme team has developed our approach to authentic learning and authentic problems to bridge this gap and ensure graduates are prepared for the workforce.
Interpretations and applications of 'authentic assessment': a discursive analysis
The aim of this paper is to contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning by illuminating discursive practices around the concept of 'authentic assessment' (University of Liverpool, C2021). More specifically, this study explores how authentic assessment has been conceptualised and applied by a selected sample of academics in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. From constructivist and discursive perspectives, this paper assesses how meanings of authenticity are constructed by interviewees (and perceived to be applied in their practice) and the extent to which such meanings recontextualise (Bernstein, 1972/2003) institutional discourses (as formalised in Curriculum 2021) and, more widely, general concepts associated with authenticity as discussed in the extant body of academic and professional literature on the subject. Findings suggest that while authenticity is to some extent reproduced drawing from institutional discourses, different stances existed among participants which do not necessarily overlap with institutional visions. Findings also suggest that, when engaging in discourses of authenticity and authentic assessment, interviewees tended to recontextualise and combine meanings of realness, practicality, and usefulness, highlighting the meaningfulness of different tasks to students. The term purposefulness is suggested here that could capture such key concepts.
The purpose of this chapter is to report what the research says about authentic assessment. First, the claims that have been made about the benefits of authentic assessment as a mechanism for measuring student performance are discussed. Next, the claims that have been made about the benefits of authentic assessment as a mechanism for facilitating learning are examined, followed by a review of research related to authentic assessment. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of some key issues of concern related to research and practice.
Authentic assessment in higher education motivates students and integrates employability into academic programmes. Authentic assessment arguably requires three elements: real-world practicality; cognitive challenge; and development of evaluative judgment. There is tension around the value of different kinds of knowledge and between academic and professional standards within authentic assessment. This tension is often most explicit for students completing a programme to gain accreditation against formal professional standards, for example to be a schoolteacher or nurse. Employability is one of the overlapping purposes of higher education but arguably so is global citizenship. In assessment in higher education we distinguish between ‘assessment criteria’ and ‘academic standards’. We also distinguish between ‘analytical’ and ‘holistic’ grading of student work. However, professional standards frameworks produced by national associations or government departments do not often adopt these...