Authentic Assessment Guidelines

Authentic assessment refers to a process that is based on reflection on the teaching, learning, achievement, motivation, and attitudes of both teachers and students during the teaching and learning process. Source

Approaches to Authentic Assessments

Need tips on how to design authentic assessments for your unit? Check out the references below.

As the research articles at the end of this topic explain, there is a strong relationship between students' acquisition of transferable (or 'soft') skills and employability. Universities understand that improving the employability of graduates is important to student success and the reputation of the institution.

For more in-depth discussion of this topic, listen to "Is Higher Education Responsible for the Skills Gap", a 20 minute podcast by Steppingblocks on the topic of 'soft skills' development, employability and the role of higher education.

In the higher education context, some transferable skills are defined as 'graduate attributes' - desirable behaviours and personal traits encouraged and developed by the university. There is a wealth of literature on graduate attributes, including on the question of how, and even whether, these should be assessed. For a general introduction, read 'Graduate attributes: implications for higher education practice and policy', Journal of Geography in Higher Education (Hill, Walkington & France, 2016).

Key Transferable Skill / '21st' Century Skill

This is the ability to find, evaluate, analyse and use information and data effectively to support self-directed inquiry. This is increasing important in the digital age. Information and digital literacies are important to combat 'misinformation' and to encourage students to seek their own evidence and information actively, rather than simply 'consuming' information uncritically.

The Association of College and Research Libraries has published an information literacy framework that explains this important transferable skill in more detail. There are many other transferable skills, including teamwork, leadership, critical thinking, digital literacy, design thinking, media literacy and communication that can be incorporated into coursework.

Are you ready?

Test yourself!