Grading, Assessment, and Feedback
37 Authentic Assessment
“A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills”
(Jon Mueller)
Goals and Benefits of Authentic Assessment
The move towards authentic assessment, according to Wiggins (1990) is designed to:
- Make students successful learners with acquired knowledge
- Provide students with a full range of skills (e.g., research, writing, revising, oral skills, debating, and other critical thinking skills)
- Demonstrate whether the student can generate full and valid answers in relation to the task or challenge at hand
- Provide reliability by offering suitable and standardized criteria for scoring such tasks and challenges
- Give students the chance to ‘rehearse’ critical thinking in achieving success in their future adult and professional lives
- Allow for assessment that meets the needs of the learners by giving authenticity and usefulness to results while allowing students greater potential for improving their learning and teachers more flexibility in instruction
Authentic Assessment Allows for Measuring Meaningful and Valid Tasks
Authentic assessment can be a meaningful learning experience when used in the context of students working on problems, projects, or products that genuinely engage and motivate them to do well.
If students are not fully engaged in the assessment, it is less likely that any resulting inference will be valid.
Authentic assessment also allows for directly measuring student achievement on important, appropriate tasks through active and flexible learning methods. Authentic assessments can be constructed for such things:
- group or individual projects,
- lab experiments,
- oral presentations,
- demonstrations,
- performances,
- writing assignments (for example, journals, essays, reports)
- literature discussion groups,
- reading logs,
- self-assessment and peer assessment, and
- cooperative learning.
Self-assessment is built into Authentic Assessment Tasks
Self-assessment asks students to examine their strengths and weaknesses and to set their own goals to further their learning. When students make choices in setting goals about their learning, achievement can increase; when choice is absent, achievement can decrease.
“We must constantly remind ourselves that the ultimate purpose of evaluation is to have students become self-evaluating” (Costa & Kallick, 1992).
Types of Authentic Assessment Tools
Many researchers advocate an increased use of authentic assessment tools. Authors such as Karge (1998), Morris (2001), and Prestidge and Williams Glaser (2000) describe a variety of authentic assessment tools that are intended to increase students’ engagement and make learning more relevant.
These include:
- role play and drama;
- concept maps;
- student portfolios;
- reflective journals;
- utilizing multiple information sources;
- group work in which team members design and build models.
Authentic assessment provides a measure by which student academic growth can be gauged over time while capturing the true depth of student learning and understanding. It moves beyond the practices of traditional tools and tasks and allows for a greater expression of students’ abilities and achievements.
