Implementing a strategic campus-wide approach to authentic assessment: considerations and recommendations for implementation

Abstract

PurposeThis article addresses the experience of academic developers and academic staff during the transition of assessment practices in an English-speaking international university campus in South East Asia. The project examined in the study was born out of the institutional strategy focused on producing graduates ready for employment.Design/methodology/approachA case study from a Business discipline highlights key factors in curricula change from the academic perspective.FindingsThis study focuses on what it meant for the academic teaching and academic development teams to work together to bridge the broadly strategic with the local practical implementation. Potential implications for others embarking on academic development within large-scale strategic projects are also provided.Originality/valueThis paper offers a discussion of the symbiotic relationship between management, academic staff and academic developers (Roxå and Mårtensson, 2008) generated by the transition to authentic assessment as a key element in the development of student employability.

Lecturers' perceptions of authentic assessment in times of COVID-19 pandemic: a case of Indonesian universities

“…The analysis shows that 23.75% of the participating lecturers strongly agree with the assessment task, 65% agree and 11.25% neutral. Importantly, most lecturers agree that the assessment task is to prepare students to enter the workplace and develop relevant skills or competencies for the future workplace (Brown et al ., 2022; Miller and Konstantinou, 2022).…”

“…Three important stages for lecturers in carrying out authentic assessments in higher education include input (design), process (implementation) and output (results/evaluation of assessment) (Meijer et al, 2020), by applying assessment principles (Villarroel et al, 2020). First, the demand for lecturers to understand and have the skills to select, design, use and revise assessment tools is time-consuming (Meijer et al, 2020) as authentic assessments are designed by considering the relationship between the knowledge, skills and attitudes and their application in the workplace and adapt to the curriculum (Williams et al, 2018;Brown et al, 2022;Miller and Konstantinou, 2022). Designing authentic assessment requires alignment between workplace, course requirement and students' needs (Lasen et al, 2018), including suitable technological tool which is effective to be utilized in virtual environment.…”

“…Third, authentic assessment serves as a key role to prepare students to enter the workplace. It can assist students to develop skills or competencies applicable to the future workplace (Brown et al, 2022;Miller and Konstantinou, 2022), demonstrate skills that will be used in the workplace (Schultz et al, 2021), meet the needs of industrial work and academic requirements (Jopp, 2020), allow students for the practice to experience and develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need to succeed in their professional careers, which aims to replicate jobs and standard performance found in the workplace (James and Casidy, 2018;Villarroel et al, 2020), and help students turn classroom knowledge into learning opportunities that go beyond higher education in the real world, such as with internship programs. Given the importance of employability as an educational goal, authentic assessments are salient to prepare students for the unpredictable workplaces, and consideration is needed to redesign the assessment and its application (Tai et al, 2018;Villarroel et al, 2018).…”