In what context would an authentic assessment be a more preferable assessment method than traditional assessment method?

Assessment attaches much importance to any sort of teaching learning process. The usual and common assessment we do is known as traditional assessment. Today we should use authentic assessment keeping pace with the growing necessities of the world. What we mean by Authentic Assessment? It’s a form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills’ as is defined by Jon Mueller. It can be characterised by open-ended tasks that require students to construct extended responses, to perform an act, or to produce a product in a real-world context—or a context that mimics the real world. Project works, portfolios, writing an article for newsletter or newspaper, performing a dance or drama, designing a digital artifact, creating a poster for science fair, debates, and oral presentations can be the examples of authentic assessment. It involves students in the actual challenges, standards, and habits needed for success in the academic disciplines or in the workplace” said Wiggins (1989). Authentic assessment tasks make the students motivated as they get opportunity to perceive the relevance of the tasks to the real world. They find it as a meaningful learning.

In our academic life, mostly we do traditional assessment. It refers to   the forced-choice measures of multiple-choice tests, fill-in-the-blanks, true-false, matching and the like that have been and remain so common in education.  Students typically select an answer or recall information to complete the assessment. These tests may be standardized or teacher-created.  They may be administered locally or education board-wise, or globally. As a nation’s mission is to develop productive citizens educational institutions must then test students to see if they acquire the expected knowledge and skills. Teachers first determine the tasks that students will perform to demonstrate their mastery, and then a curriculum is developed that will enable students to perform those tasks well, which would include the acquisition of essential knowledge and skills. 

Authentic assessments have several advantages over conventional or traditional tests. They are likely to be more valid than conventional tests, particularly for learning outcomes that require higher-order thinking skills. Because they involve real-world tasks, they are also likely to be more interesting for students, and thus more motivating. And finally, they can provide more specific and usable information about what students have succeeded in learning as well as what they have not learned.

Authentic assessment has played a pivotal role in driving curricular and instructional changes in the context of global educational reforms. Since the 1990s, teacher education and professional development programmes in many education systems around the globe have focused on the development of assessment literacy for teachers and teacher candidates which encompasses teacher competence in the design, adaptation, and use of authentic assessment tasks or performance assessment tasks to engage students in in-depth learning of subject matter and to promote their mastery of the 21st-century competencies.

Authentic assessment serves as an alternative to conventional assessment. Conventional assessment is limited to standardized paper-and-pencil/pen tests, which emphasize objective measurement. Standardized tests employ closed-ended item formats such as true‒false, matching, or multiple choice. The use of these item formats is believed to increase efficiency of test administration, objectivity of scoring, reliability of test scores, and cost-effectiveness as machine scoring and large-scale administration of test items are possible. However, it is widely recognised that traditional standardised testing restricts the assessment of higher-order thinking skills and other essential 21st-century competencies due to the nature of the item format. From an objective measurement or psychometric perspective, rigorous and higher-level learning outcomes such as critical thinking, complex problem solving, collaboration, and extended communication are too subjective to be tested.

In traditional assessment student’s attention will understandably be focused on and limited to what is on the test. In contrast, authentic assessments allow more student choice and construction in determining what is presented as evidence of proficiency. Even when students cannot choose their own topics or formats, there are usually multiple acceptable routes towards constructing a product or performance. Obviously, assessments more carefully controlled by the teachers offer advantages and disadvantages. Similarly, more student-structured tasks have strengths and weaknesses that must be considered when choosing and designing an assessment.

The amount of new information is increasing at an exponential rate due to the advancement of digital technology. Hence, rote learning and regurgitation of facts or procedures are no longer suitable in contemporary educational contexts. Rather, students are expected to be able to find, organise, interpret, analyse, evaluate, synthesise, and apply new information or knowledge to solve non-routine problems.

The writer works for BRAC Education Programme and formerly taught in Cadet Colleges and Rajuk College