Topic Authentic

5 Assessment

LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. Define authentic assessment;
2. Discuss authentic assessment in the classroom;
3. Differentiate the advantages and criticisms of authentic assessment;
and
4. Compare the authentic and traditional assessment.

INTRODUCTION
Many teachers use traditional assessment tools such as multiple-choice tests and
essay type tests to assess their students. How well do these multiple-choice or
essay tests really evaluate student understanding and achievement? These
traditional assessment tools do serve a role in the assessment of student
outcomes. However, assessment does not always have to involve paper and
pencil, but can instead be in the form of a project, an observation, or a task that
shows a student has learned the material. Are these alternative assessments more
effective than the traditional ones?

Some classroom teachers are using testing strategies that do not focus entirely on
recalling facts. Instead, they ask students to demonstrate skills and concepts they
have learned. Teachers may want to ask the students learn how to apply their
skills to authentic tasks and projects or to have students demonstrate their
knowledge in ways that are much more applicable to life outside of schools. The
students must then be trained to perform meaningful tasks that replicate real-
world challenges. In other words, these teachers are trying to assess students

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

108 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

abilities in real-world contexts. In this assessment, students are asked to

perform a task to explain historical events, solve math problems rather than
select an answer from a ready-made list.

This strategy of asking students to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate

meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills is called authentic
assessment. An authentic assessment is to have students demonstrate their
knowledge in ways that are much more applicable to life outside of school.

5.1 WHAT IS AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT IN

THE CLASSROOM?
Firstly we need to differentiate between a portfolio and authentic assessment.
What is a portfolio? Portfolios tend to be associated with art, where the student
keeps his or her pieces of work in a kind of folder to be presented for evaluation.
Some people may associate portfolios with the stock market where a person or
organisation keeps a portfolio of stocks and shares owned. We can define a
portfolio as a purposeful collection of works that serve as evidence of an
individuals skills, ideas, interests and accomplishments. A portfolio is produced
by a student which reflects his or her efforts, progress and achievements in
different areas of the curriculum. In other words, portfolios are collections of
student activities, accomplishments and achievements to demonstrate growth
over time, offering an alternative authentic assessment for students and teachers.
Working portfolios contain works in process as well as finished works.

According to Wiggins & McTighe (1998) teachers become most effective when
they seek feedback from students and their peers and use that feedback to adjust
approaches to design and teaching. Effective curriculum development reflects a
three-stage design process called backward design that delays the planning of
classroom activities until goals have been clarified and assessments designed.
This process helps to avoid the problems of textbook coverage and activity-
oriented teaching, in which no clear priorities and purposes are apparent.
Student and school performance gains are achieved through regular reviews of
results followed by targeted adjustments to curriculum and instruction.

Authentic assessment, in contrast to more traditional assessment, encourages the

integration of teaching, learning and assessing. In the traditional assessment
model, teaching and learning are often separated from assessment. A test is
administered after knowledge or skills have been acquired. An authentic
assessment usually includes a task for students to perform and a rubric by which
their performance on the task will be assessed. Thus doing science experiment,

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 109

writing stories and reports, solving mathematics problems that have real-world
applications can be considered as authentic assessment. Useful achievement data
can be obtained via authentic assessment.

Teachers can teach students how to do mathematics, do history and do science,

not just know them. Then, to assess what the students had learned, teachers can
ask students to perform tasks that replicate the challenges faced by those using
mathematics, doing history or conducting scientific investigation. Well-designed
traditional classroom assessments such as tests and quizzes can effectively
determine whether or not students have acquired a body of knowledge. In
contrast, authentic assessments ask students to demonstrate understanding by
performing a more complex task usually representative of more meaningful
application. These tasks involve asking students to analyse, synthesise and apply
what they have learned in a substantial manner, and students create new
meaning in the process as well. In short, authentic assessment helps answer the
question, How well can you use what you know? but traditional testing helps
answer the question, Do you know it?

The usual or traditional classroom assessment such as multiple-choice tests, short

answer tests are just as important as the authentic assessment. The authentic
assessment complements the traditional assessment. The authentic assessment
has been gaining acceptance among early childhood and primary school teachers
where traditional assessment may not be appropriate.

5.2 ALTERNATIVE NAMES FOR AUTHENTIC

ASSESSMENT
Authentic assessment is sometimes referred to as performance assessment,
alternative assessment and direct assessment.

It is called performance assessment or performance-based assessment because

students are asked to perform meaningful tasks. Performance assessment is A
test in which the test taker actually demonstrates the skills the test is intended to
measure by doing real-world tasks that require those skills, rather than by
answering questions asking how to do them (Tom Vander Ark 2013). Project
based learning (PBL) and portfolio assignments are examples of performance
assessment. With performance assessment, teachers observe students while they
are performing in the classroom, and judge the level of proficiency demonstrated.
As authentic tasks are rooted in curriculum, teachers can develop tasks based
on what already works for them. Through this process, more evidence based
assignments such as portfolios become more authentic and more meaningful to
students.

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

110 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

The alternative assessment name is used because authentic assessment is an

alternative to traditional assessments. Using checklists and rubrics in self and
peer evaluation, students participate actively in evaluating themselves and one
another. Alternative assessments measure performance in forms other than
traditional paper-and-pencil, and short answer tests. For example, a Klang Valley
science teacher may ask the students identify the different pollutants in the Klang
River to report to the local environmental council.

Direct assessment is so-called because authentic assessments are direct measure

that provides more direct evidence of meaningful application of knowledge and
skills. If a student does well on a multiple-choice test we might infer indirectly
that the student could apply that knowledge in real-world contexts; but we
would be more comfortable making that inference from a direct demonstration of
that application such as in the river pollutants example mentioned earlier. We do
not just want students to know the content of the disciplines when they leave
school. We want them to apply other knowledge and skills they have learned.
Direct evidence of student learning is tangible, visible, and measureable and
tends to be more compelling evidence of exactly what students have and have
not learned. Teachers can directly look at students work or performances to
determine what they have learned.

5.3 HOW TO USE AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT?

Authentic assessments focus on the learning process; sound instructional
practices; and high-level thinking skills and proficiencies needed for success in
the real world, and, therefore, may offer students who have been exposed to
them huge advantages over those who have not. This helps students see
themselves as active participants, who are working on a task of relevance, rather
than passive recipients of obscure facts. It helps teachers by encouraging them to
reflect on the relevance of what they teach and provides results that are useful for
improving instruction.

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 111

The following lists the steps which you can take to create your own authentic
assessment:

(a) Identify which standards you want your students to meet through this
assessment;

(b) Choose a relevant task for this standard, or set of standards, so that
students can demonstrate how they have or have not met the standards;

(c) Define the characteristics of good performance on this task. This will
provide useful information regarding how well students have met the
standards; and

(d) Create a rubric, or set of guidelines for students to follow so that they are
able to assess their work as they perform the assigned task.

Brady (2012) suggested some examples of authentic assessment strategies:

(a) Exhibit an athletic skill;

(b) Produce a short musical, dance or drama;

(c) Publish a class brochure;

(d) Perform a role, an oral presentation or an artistic display;

(e) Plan or draw conceptual mind maps or flow charts;

(f) Demonstrate the use of ICT tools such as web pages creation or video
editing;

(g) Construct models;

(h) Creative writing;

(i) Peer teaching, evaluating teacher-student feedback; and

(j) Attempt unstructured tasks like problem solving, open-ended questions,

formal and informal observations.

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

112 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

5.4 ADVANTAGES OF AUTHENTIC

ASSESSMENT
According to Wiggins (1990), while standardised, multiple-choice tests can be
valid indicators of academic performance, tests often mislead students into
believing that learning is cramming and mislead teachers into believing tests are
after-the-fact, contrived and irrelevant.

A move toward more authentic tasks and outcomes improves teaching and
learning. In this respect, authentic assessment has many benefits, but the main
benefits are that it ensures student success through:

(a) Providing parents and community members with directly observable

products and understandable evidence concerning their students
performance. The quality of student work is more discernible to laypersons
than when we must rely on abstract statistical figures;

(b) Using tasks that reflect normal classroom activities or real-life learning as
means for improving instruction; thus, allowing teachers to plan a
comprehensive, developmentally-oriented curriculum based on their
knowledge of each child;

(c) Focusing on higher order thinking skills such as applying, analysing,

evaluating and creating, which are found in Blooms taxonomy.
Performance assessment evaluates thinking skills such as analysis,
synthesis, evaluation and interpretation of facts and ideas skills which
standardised tests generally avoid;

(d) Embedding authentic assessment in the classroom allows for a wide range
of assessment strategies. It involves the teacher and student collaboratively
in determining assessment (student-structured tasks);

(e) Requiring active performance to demonstrate understanding. Kinaesthetic

learners prefer to be involved in activities; they need to apply the
information and make it their own by constructing something or practising
a technique or skill; and

(f) Having authentic assessment focuses on progress, rather than identifying

weaknesses.

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 113

5.5 CRITICISMS OF AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

Authentic assessment poses solutions as well as problems. Criticism of authentic
assessments generally involve both the informal development of the assessments
and difficulty in ensuring test validity and reliability given the subjective nature
of human scoring rubrics as compared to computers scoring multiple-choice test
items. Many teachers shy away from authentic assessments because these
methodologies are time intensive to manage, grade, monitor and coordinate.
Teachers find it hard to provide consistent grading scheme. The subjective
method of grading may lead to bias. Teachers also find this method is not
practical for big group of students.

Rubrics are essential component of authentic assessment. They are wonderful

tool to ensure a more authentic assessment of students work. However, making
rubrics are time consuming in the initial stages but are worth the investment.
Alfie Kohn (2006) observed that rubric which was used to standardise the way
they think about student assignments has many faults. Students who have
presumably grown accustomed to rubrics in other classrooms, now seem unable
to function unless every required item is spelled out for them. However this does
mean that the rubric is defective. As long as the rubric is only one of several
sources and does not drive the instruction, it could conceivably play a
constructive role.

Nevertheless, based on the value of authentic assessments to student outcomes,

the advantages of authentic assessments outweigh these concerns. For example,
once the assessment guidelines and grading rubric are created, they can be filed
away and used year after year. As Linquist (1951) noted, there is nothing new
about this authentic assessment methodology. This is not some kind of radical
invention recently fabricated by the opponents of traditional tests to challenge
the testing industry. Rather it is a proven method of evaluating human
characteristics that has been in use for decades.

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

114 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

5.6 CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTHENTIC

ASSESSMENT
This subtopic highlights the main characteristics of authentic assessment as
summed up by Reeves et al. (2002), and then contrasts its methodology to that of
traditional assessment. According to Reeves et al., authentic learning is
characterised by:

(a) Authentic Activities have Real-world Relevance

The assessment is meant to focus on the impact of ones work in real or
realistic contexts.

(b) Authentic Activities Require Students to Define the Tasks and Sub-tasks
Needed to Complete the Activity
Problems inherent in the activities are open to multiple interpretations
rather than easily solved by the application of existing algorithms.

(c) Authentic Activities Comprise Complex Tasks to Be Investigated by

Students Over a Sustained Period of Time
Activities are completed in days, weeks and months rather than minutes or
hours. They require significant investment of time and intellectual
resources.

(d) Authentic Activities Provide the Opportunity for Students to Examine the
Task from Different Perspectives, Using a Variety of Resources
The use of a variety of resources rather than a limited number of pre-
selected references requires students to distinguish relevant information
from irrelevant data.

(e) Authentic Activities Provide the Opportunity to Collaborate

Collaboration is integral to the task, both within the course and the real
world, rather than achievable by the individual learner.

(f) Authentic Activities Provide the Opportunity to Reflect

Activities need to enable learners to make choices and reflect on their
learning, both individually and socially.

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 115

(g) Authentic Activities Can Be Integrated and Applied Across Different

Subject Areas and Lead Beyond Domain-specific Outcomes
Activities encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and enable students to
play diverse roles thus building robust expertise rather than knowledge
limited to a single well-defined field or domain.

(h) Authentic Activities are Seamlessly Integrated with Assessment

Assessment of activities is seamlessly integrated with the major task in a
manner that reflects real-world assessment, rather than separate artificial
assessment removed from the nature of the task.

(i) Authentic Activities Create Values

The product, outcome or result of an activity is polished and is valued by
the student in its own right, rather than being treated as preparation for
something else.

(j) Authentic Activities Allow Competing Solutions and Diversity of

Outcomes
Activities allow a range and diversity of outcomes open to multiple
solutions of an original nature, rather than a single correct response
obtained by the application of rules and procedures.

5.6.1 Differences between Authentic and Traditional

Assessment
Assessment is authentic when we directly examine student performance on
worthy intellectual tasks. Traditional assessment, by contrast, relies on indirect or
proxy items that though efficient, are simplistic substitutes from which we
think valid inferences can be made about the students performance at those
valued challenges (Wiggins, 1990). The differences can be summed up by the
following Table 5.1.

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

116 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

Table 5.1: Comparisons between Authentic and Traditional Assessments

Attributes Authentic Assessment Traditional Assessment

Reasoning and Practice Schools must help students Schools must teach this
become proficient at body of knowledge and
performing the tasks they skills.
will encounter when they
leave schools.
To determine if teaching is
successful, the school must
To determine if teaching is then test students to see if
successful, the school must they acquired the
then ask students to knowledge and skills.
perform meaningful tasks
that replicate real-world
challenges to see if
students are capable of
doing so.
Assessment and Assessment drives the The curriculum drives
Curriculum curriculum. That is, assessment. The body of
teachers first determine the knowledge is determined
tasks that students will first. That knowledge
perform to demonstrate becomes the curriculum
their mastery, and then a that is delivered.
curriculum is developed Subsequently, the
that will enable students to assessments are developed
perform those tasks well, and administered to
which would include the determine if acquisition of
acquisition of essential the curriculum occurred.
knowledge and skills. This
has been referred to as
planning backwards.
Selecting a Response to Students are required to Students are typically
Performing a Task demonstrate given several choices and
understanding by asked to select the right
performing a more answer.
complex task usually
representative of more
meaningful application.

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 117

Contrived to Real Life Students are asked to Tests offer contrived

demonstrate proficiency means (E.g.: Select one out
by doing something. four options in MCQ) of
assessment to increase the
number of times you can
be asked to demonstrate
proficiency in a short
period of time.
Recall/Recognition of Authentic assessments Traditional tests tend to
Knowledge to require students to Be reveal only Whether the
Construction/Application effective performers with student can recognise,
of Knowledge acquired knowledge. recall what was learned
Teachers using this out of context. Students are
methodology often ask often asked to recall or
students to analyse recognise facts.
synthesise and apply what
they have learned in a
substantial manner, and
students create new
meaning in the process as
well.
Teacher-structured to Authentic assessments What a student can and
Student-structured allow more student choice will demonstrate has been
and construction in carefully structured by the
determining what is person(s) who developed
presented as evidence of the test. A students
proficiency. Even when attention will
students cannot choose understandably be focused
their own topics or on and limited to what is
formats, there are usually on the test.
multiple acceptable routes
towards constructing a
product or performance.

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

118 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

Indirect Evidence to Direct Authentic assessments, The evidence is very

Evidence offer more direct evidence indirect, particularly for
of application and claims of meaningful
construction of knowledge. application in complex,
real-world situations.
E.g.: Asking a student to
write a critique should E.g.: In MCQ, a student
provide more direct effectively cannot critique
evidence of that skill than the arguments someone
asking the student a series else has presented (an
of multiple-choice, important skill often
analytical questions about required in the real world)
a passage,
Reliability and Validity Authentic assessment Traditional testing
achieves validity and standardises objective
reliability by emphasising items and, hence, the
and standardising the (one) right answers for
appropriate criteria for each.
scoring such products.
Validity on most multiple-
Test validity should choice tests is determined
depend in part upon merely by matching items
whether the test simulates to the curriculum content.
real-world tests of
ability.

Adapted from Mueller (n.d.). Authentic assessment toolbox. Retrieved from

http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/

SELF-CHECK 5.1
1. What is authentic assessment?

2. State the other names used to describe authentic assessment.

3. Highlight three differences between authentic and traditional

assessment.

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 119

ACTIVITY 5.1
1. State the reasons why authentic assessment is a good replacement
for traditional assessment.

2. Give an example of authentic assessment.

The strategy of asking students to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate

meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills is called authentic
assessment.

Authentic assessment is sometimes called performance assessment,

alternative assessment or direct assessment.

Authentic assessment has many advantages and traditional assessment

complement the authentic assessment.

An authentic assessment usually includes a task for students to perform and

a rubric by which his or her performance on the task will be evaluated.

Authentic assessment is a proven method of assessing human characteristics

that has been in use for decades.

Alternative assessment Indirect evidence

Backwards design Kinaesthetic
Contrived to real life Performance assessment
Direct evidence Student-structured

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)

120 TOPIC 5 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

Brady, L. (2012). Assessment and reporting: Celebrating student achievement

(4th ed.). Melbourne, Australia: Pearson.

Kohn, A. (2006). The trouble with rubrics. English Journal , 95(4).

Linquist, E. F. (1951). Preliminary considerations in objective test construction. In

E.F. Linquist (Ed). Educational measurement (pp. 422). Washington, DC:
American Council on Education.

Reeves, T. C., Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. (2002). Authentic activity as a model for
web-based learning. Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American
Educational Research Association, New Orleans, FL.

Vander Ark, T. (2013). What is performance assessment? Retrieved from

http://gettingsmart.com/2013/12/performance-assessment/

Wiggins, G. (1990). The case for authentic assessment. Practical Assessment,

Research & Evaluation, 2(2). Retrieved from http://PAREonline.net/
getvn.asp?v=2&n=2

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA:

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

Copyright Open University Malaysia (OUM)