Authentic Assessment
NEW: A vision for education and skills at Newcastle University: Education for Life 2030+
What is Authentic Assessment?
Authentic assessment challenges students to perform tasks that mirror real-world scenarios, particularly in professional or workplace contexts. It helps students develop and demonstrate skills, knowledge, and competencies that are directly applicable beyond academia, preparing them for future careers and life.
Why use authentic assessment?
Authentic assessment can be used to develop students' work capabilities and impact graduate employability. There is high value in utilising assessment which relates to relevant employability skills within disciplines, but authentic assessment can also have social value for wider applicability (McArthur, 2023). There are also over thirty years of studies (Villarroel et al, 2017) that show authentic assessment to be beneficial to:
- Quality and depth of learning;
- Development of higher cognitive level skills;
- More autonomy, motivation, and commitment to learning;
- And better self-regulation capacity, metacognition, and self-reflection.
There are lots of benefits to learning itself, with increased student engagement and motivation, and better outcomes all round.
By incorporating authentic assessment into your teaching practice, you equip students with the tools to succeed in professional and personal contexts. It ensures they not only acquire knowledge but also apply it meaningfully, aligning education with the University's commitment to inclusivity, innovation, and future readiness.
Additionally, authentic assessment aligns closely with our Education for Life strategy aims:
- Equity: By designing assessments that cater to diverse needs and experiences, authentic assessment ensures equitable access and opportunities for all learners, regardless of their background, nationality, or study mode. This inclusivity helps all students discover and achieve their potential.
- Encounters with the Leading Edge: Authentic assessments incorporate cutting-edge research, industry practices, and real-world scenarios into the curriculum, offering students meaningful experiences that connect their learning to future workplace demands.
- Fit for the Future: These assessments develop essential skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and self-regulation, ensuring students are well-prepared for the challenges of modern workplaces and society.
You will likely be familiar with Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy (left), and this neatly displays what we mean by depth of learning and higher cognitive skills. Where some assessment methods may not ask the students to do any more than apply knowledge, authentic assessment can provide richer opportunities to analyse, evaluate, and create.
There is a very good chance that you are already doing much of this, of course: you will already be familiar with the industries that your students will go on to work in, and the demands of those workplaces. As you look through the examples below, you will probably already recognise some assessment methods that you use already.
Examples of Authentic Assessment:
- Projects.
- Group work.
- Peer evaluation.
- Portfolios.
- Presentations or Vivas.
- Problem-solving with ‘real-world’ scenarios.
- Performance.
- Compentency based assessment.
- Simulations and roleplay.
- Peer-to-peer teaching.
- Providing choices of assessment (allows students to consider working to strengths).
Tools
NUReflect
NU Reflect is a versatile tool designed to support students in developing reflective portfolios, which can be a powerful means of authentic assessment. Here’s how it can be utilised:
- Structured reflection: NU Reflect provides templates and frameworks that guide students through the reflective process. This helps them critically analyse their learning experiences, skills, and development.
- Skill development: students can track and categorise their skills against frameworks, ensuring they are meeting the necessary competencies for their programme.
- Portfolio creation: By compiling their reflections, students can create comprehensive portfolios that showcase their learning journey and achievements. These portfolios can be used for both academic assessment and professional development. To find out more watch this short video on portfolio development in NU Reflect.
For more information on NU Reflect, visit NU Reflect | Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle | Newcastle University
Buddycheck for peer evaluation
Buddycheck is a Canvas integrated tool which allows students’ to peer evaluate group work contributions.
As a peer evaluation tool Buddycheck allows students to evaluate contributions of their group members providing feedback for assessors. By using authentic assessment options like peer evaluation, students are given the opportunity to engage with self and peer evaluation.
Buddycheck’s peer evaluation allows for:
- Real-world relevance: students would engage in providing constructive feedback on others work.
- Responsibility and accountability: this encourages students, as part of the group work, to take responsibility for their contribution and be accountable due to peer scoring impact on individual grades.
- Reflection: during the process, self scores are captured which also encourages self reflection skill enhancement.
For further details please see Buddycheck | Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle | Newcastle University
H5P
H5P is a powerful tool that can be used to create interactive and engaging online content through a simple user interface. H5P allows the user to create a wide range of different types of interactive content, many of which are ideal for creating authentic formative assessments, in particular the branching scenario can be used to create intricate real-world scenarios with multiple outcomes, use the following link for some examples https://h5p.org/branching-scenario.
H5P's versatility also allows for personalized feedback, enabling instructors to provide tailored guidance that fosters deeper learning. Overall, using H5P for assessment promotes a more holistic and learner-centred approach, making it a valuable tool for measuring not just recall, but also the practical application of skills and concepts.
For more information about getting started with H5P please visit H5P | Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle | Newcastle University
Inspera for Digital Exams
Digital Exams can be used to allow for authentic assessment by giving students the opportunity to mimic real-world tasks or to explore practical contexts of their learning.
Authentic assessment can be achieved within a Digital Exam setting when students are tasked with completing activities as part of their assessment which mirror real world practices and challenges. Some examples include; case study-based scenarios, role play and simulation style assessment questions.
Within Newcastle University we have current user examples, whereby conducting Inspera Digital Exams has enabled authenticity:
- Video based Digital Exams: incorporating medical based videos into Digital Exams has become a valuable part of authentic assessments, designed to engage students in interpreting, analysing and applying learning in practical ways
- Audio based Digital Exams: including audio clips within phonetics based Digital Exams mimics practical tasks students may face in the field
- Keyboard Language altering based Digital Exams: within language courses, changing the keyboard language to match the language being assessed allows students to type using the target language, using correct characters and accents
- Open resources: Inspera Digital Exams can be created so certain resources, such as data sets or access to specialized software (i.e. SPSS) can be accessed during a Digital Exam. Allowing students to use tools which are used in real-world professions demonstrates real world application.
Inspera is a digital exam platform enabling locked down exams to take place on campus. For more information see Inspera | Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle | Newcastle University
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Authentic Assessment
According to a recent HEPI survey, 73% of students expect to use AI after they finish their studies.
If you are interested in the ways that AI is impacting assessment, or some ideas for incorporating AI tools into authentic assessment, please see this AI and Assessment Ideas Deck.
For an introduction to using AI Tools in education, this AI for Educators course (self-directed on Canvas) provides an excellent overview.
There are webinars and in-person workshops on AI and AI assessment design available through Elements.
And the Learning and Teaching site's pages on Artificial Intelligence are available from the banner at the bottom of this page.
References
- Sarkar, Mahbub; Sarkar M.; Overton, Tina; Thompson, Christopher; Rayner, Gerry Graduate employability: Views of recent science graduates and employers. International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education Volume 24, Issue 3, Pages 31 – 48 2016, available from the Newcastle University Library.
- Villarroel, V., Bloxham, S., Bruna, D., Bruna, C., & Herrera-Seda, C. (2017). Authentic assessment: creating a blueprint for course design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(5), 840–854, available from the Newcastle University Library.