Using Authentic Assessments to Surface Learning

What is authentic assessment?

One goal of assessment is to make learning tangible to students and discernible to instructors, so that both students and instructors know if and how learning is happening. Authentic assessment has been brought to the fore as an option for rethinking assessments. While AI has made it more challenging than ever for instructors to know that their students are learning, authentic assessment can help illuminate both the process and product of learning. Authentic assessment seeks to replicate workplace or professional performance through observable tasks and processes that demonstrate knowledge and skills, compared to traditional assessments (e.g., tests, quizzes), which have been critiqued for measuring knowledge and skills out of context.

Realism is a key characteristic of authentic assessment, and the workplace or professional practice is a key context. Authentic assessment in higher education includes various contexts of authenticity (e.g., digital, personal, social, ethical, etc.) that affect tasks and the learning processes that instructors want to ensure are happening. Therefore, authentic assessment is an option for many programs and courses, beyond those programs that graduate students directly to professional practice (e.g., pharmacy, optometry).

This teaching tip explores the benefits of authentic assessment, design considerations, and implementation examples.

Benefits of Authentic Assessment

For instructors, authentic assessments can:

For students, authentic assessments can:
  • help mitigate potential breaches of academic integrity and submission of AI-generated work compared to traditional assessments;
  • increase students’ engagement in activities and assessments because motivation is linked to authenticity;
  • create conditions for learning to last over time because authentic assessments are designed with higher-order thinking skills (e.g., application, analysis, evaluation, creation) in mind.
  • increase quality and depth of learning through development of higher-order thinking skills (e.g., application, analysis, evaluation, creation);
  • enhance employability by promoting transferable skills needed in the workplace, like problem-solving skills, autonomy, motivation, and self-regulation.

Design Considerations

General considerations

  • Start small. Remember that authenticity is a spectrum. This consideration might be particularly important for large classes and other situations where tension exists between authenticity and feasibility. E.g., you don’t need to redesign your entire course around a service-learning experience; instead, authenticity can provide the context for an impactful written assignment.
  • Design authentic assessments with accessibility in mind. While some authentic assessments require students to engage with learning in unique ways (e.g., service learning), it’s always important to be aware of potential barriers to student participation. Visit Ramping Up Accessibility in Designing Assessment and Learning Activities (Accessible Teaching website).
  • Choose a task that students deem worthwhile to their learning and future. E.g., pull up relevant job postings and, as a class, look at the skills students need and discuss why those skills are important and which skills students will try to develop within the course. Consider facilitating a class discussion or opening a survey to collect students’ suggestions for authentic tasks.
  • Ensure that the task requires students to use higher-order thinking skills, like application, analysis, evaluation, and creation. Read this Teaching Tip: Bloom’s Taxonomy Learning Activities and Assessments.
  • Give students the grading criteria ahead of time and designate class time for students to ask questions. Then have students use the grading criteria to evaluate their own work. Students can hand in their draft work and describe the changes they identify should be made based on the grading criteria. Read this Teaching Tip: Rubrics: Useful Assessment Tool.
  • Have conversations with administrators and colleagues to see if and how authentic assessments might be used in your department or discipline to help coordinate these student experiences across a program.

Context considerations

  • Carefully consider the type of authenticity you want to assess. This might be particularly challenging and important for programs or courses that don’t connect directly to specific professions. More examples appear in the next section.
    • Workplace: Research the work requirements that your students might encounter. You might wish to consider what AI-related competencies students should develop and/or to ensure students have the skills needed to use AI tools they might encounter in their workplaces.
    • Social: Research pressing social issues that might affect students studying and working in your discipline.E.g.,you might wish to consider topics like economic inequality, discrimination, or environmental injustice, or effective, responsible, and ethical uses of AI.
    • Here are some additional authentic contexts to consider integrating into assessments and activities as applicable:
      • Social interactions
      • Complex, ill-structured problems
      • Personal/self
      • Professional practice/competencies
      • Societal (local, global, historical)
      • Disciplinary

Implementation examples

  • AI-aware assessments: Students practice with GenAI in a similar manner to which it is being used in their discipline/profession and then review the outputs and identify errors, gaps, and limitations, as well as strengths.
  • Case analyses: Students examine and evaluate a realistic situation, problem, or scenario. They gather relevant information, identify key factors, analyze various aspects, and formulate conclusions or recommendations based on the findings. E.g., social work students practice clinical skills through case studies based on real clients.
  • Community-based learning: Students connect theory to practice by learning about community partners. E.g., students research an organization they are passionate about and propose a project that would benefit the community group. The proposal is graded, rather than the project.
  • Digital worlds: Students complete assignments where they use a digital platform in a realistic way, such as creating social media posts, podcasts, YouTube videos, or Wikis. E.g., students work with an industry partner, such as a local Business Improvement Area, to create a walking tour in a popular map app. Such projects that partner with industry should be undertaken with support from the Centre for Work-Integrated Learning.
  • Portfolios: Students curate a portfolio of their work, either showcasing their best work or showing how their learning changed over time. Depending on the discipline (e.g., fine arts, creative writing, architecture, engineering), the portfolio itself might be the authentic assessment. Read this Teaching Tip: ePortfolios Explained: Theory and Practice. If students explain the thinking behind their curation, then metacognition, a life-long learning skill, might be the authentic assessment.
  • Here are some additional assessment types that lend well to authentic assessment:
    • Critical reflection
    • Experiments
    • Peer- and self-assessment
    • Problem-solving
    • Projects
    • Simulations

If you would like support applying these tips to your own teaching, CTE staff members are here to help.  View the CTE Support page to find the most relevant staff member to contact. 

Resources

Related teaching tips

References

This Creative Commons license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and indicate if changes were made. Use this citation format: Using authentic assessments to surface learning. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.

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