Authentic Assessment

Authentic / Alternative Assessment

Authentic assessment (sometimes called alternative assessment), or assessment that focuses on demonstrating competencies as they take place in—or in an environment emulating—the real-world is both sound pedagogy and naturally protects assessment integrity.

This presentation by Karen Harris of Rutgers’ Teaching and Learning With Technology presents an excellent list of 10 suggested alternatives to exams that can be aligned with many subjects and goals, and is a nice introduction to authentic assessment.

Why Authentic Assessment?

Integrity

While striving to build a culture of integrity and inquiry in the classroom is always recommended, authentic assessments will naturally be more difficult, if not impossible to cheat.

True and Direct Measures

Performance on traditional tests and quizzes can be misleading in assessing mastery and inaccurate in predicting performance. Authentic assessment directly measures performance.

Learning as an Ongoing Process

Authentic assessment treats learning as a process demonstrating mastery at the point of assessment and creating habits of mind that serve learners in their professions.

Integration

Authentic assessment bridges the gaps between teaching, learning and assessment, encouraging and integrated approach.

Construct and Consequential Validity

Authentic assessments have greater construct validity—they are more likely to measure what is intended to be measured (competency, process, and performance in, or as it would be in the real world—and greater consequential validity, contributing positively to the teaching.

What is Authentic Assessment?

Grant Wiggins, who popularized the concept, identifies 27 characteristics of authentic assessment, including that they:

• Are appropriately public,
• Do not rely on unrealistic, arbitrary time constraints,
• Are not "one shot," but are process-based,
• Are contextualized and complex, not "atomized" into isolated objectives,
• Are representative of challenges of the field or subject,
• Involve essential criteria, not what is easily scored,
• Allow appropriate choice for students to express their style and interests,
• Uses rubrics for transparency of expectations and evaluations,
• Incorporate self-reflection and meta-cognitive exploration,
• Allow for feedback, practice and second chances, and
• Make self-assessment part of the assessment.

Comparing Traditional and Authentic Assessments

It can also be useful to consider how features of authentic assessment compare to features of traditional assessment (which should complement one another!):

Physics Final Alternative Assessment

Dr. Peter Selkin explains an alternative assessment technique he uses in a physics class:

More Examples

Authentic assessment comes in a multitude of forms and crosses all disciplines. Some examples:

• Portfolio building, such as creating a research portfolio
• Participating in a virtual stock market
• Solving real-world problems posed by, and in collaboration with, external partners
• Scripting, creating, and editing short films and documentaries
• Role play, such as participating in a simulated newspaper
• Evaluate news stories for validity and bias
• Peer review activities
• Problem- and project-based learning
• Discussion board participation (beyond the basics) particularly if intentionally constructed to promote student leadership, weaving and summarizing, etc. See Better Discussion for more
• Write applications, programs and documentation for real-world clients
• Community engaged learning / service learning

Devise an Alternative Assessment

Consider your course's traditional assessments. Choose one of them for potential replacement by an authentic assessment. Some characteristics that might help you make a choice:

• Is it an assessment that is under-performing (in terms of student performance or the evidence it yields for your evaluation of student learning)?
• Is it an assessment intended to demonstrate an understanding or performance outside of class: in further courses, the discipline, or the students' career?

Once you have chosen the assessment, devise an alternative using the principles of authentic assessment. In this phase, considering Grant Wiggins' full list of the characteristics of authentic assessment.