Authentic Assessment

Printed from the Learning, Teaching and Assessment Guide at http://www.ltag.education.tas.gov.au

“Authentic assessment” is linked to a teaching and learning program that seeks to provide contextual tasks in a supportive environment so that the learner can be given feedback about their progress.

The form that any assessment takes must be linked to its purpose.  The purpose of any assessment must be explicit to those being assessed.  That is, the criteria that will be used to assess must be clear and transparent to the students.  The teacher must have a clear understanding of what it is that students will be able to know and understand and be able to describe it to them.  The rubric being used to assess must be explicit to everyone involved in the assessment process. 

The assessment task must, therefore, be both valid and reliable; otherwise the assessment will be unfair to the student.  Grant Wiggins (Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance, Jossey-Bass, 1998) suggests a simple two-question technique for on-going analysis of any possible assessment task, especially one derived from an activity, in order to assess its potential validity and reliability. The questions are:

1. Could the student do well at the task for reasons that have little to do with the desired understanding or skill being assessed?
2. Could the student do poorly at the task for reasons that have little to do with the desired understanding or skill?

In other words, does the assessment task match the learning program that the students have been engaged in and the rubric that is being used when assessing?

An assessment task in itself is not authentic. To be so, it must match the interacting processes of teaching and learning in which the students have been engaged.  It must be designed in such a way that it is fair and equitable to all students being assessed.  The students must have a clear understanding of what they are expected to be able to know and do, and have had on-going feedback about their progress towards what is being assessed.

As well, it is important to understand that no single assessment can demonstrate the full range of what a student can do and understand.  Every performance is really just a sample of performance; a window into what students can do. Therefore, it is important for students to have the opportunity to demonstrate what they know and can do a number of times in a number of different situations.  There is always a measurement error range around any performance, no matter what kind of task has been undertaken. 

 “Authentic assessment,” like any kind of assessment, must be designed to ensure, as far as possible, that it is valid, reliable and equitable.

Andrew Smith and Heather Jatan
Department of Education, Tasmania