Literature Lexicon

The origins of ‘authenticity’ in assessment

The first documented use of the term ‘authentic assessment’ is generally attributed to Grant Wiggins in his contributions to debates about the reform of assessment in schools and his calls for moving beyond high-stakes, standardized tests to developing alternative forms of assessment that more ‘authentically’ evaluate the ‘capacities and habits we think are essential’ for learners to develop and demonstrate, or ‘what they can actually do with what was studied’ in contextualised tasks that ‘replicate, within reason’ the  ‘intellectual challenges’ and ‘standards of performance’  at  'the heart of a discipline' or 'facing a person in the field' (Wiggins, 1989).

Wiggins would write later about authentic assessment that ‘I believe the phrase was of my coining’ ​(Wiggins, 2014) but its first published use was in a 1988 volume on ‘assessing authentic academic achievement’ in secondary schools, written by Doug Archbald and Fred Newmann (1988). In their publication, these authors summarised some common critiques levelled at traditional assessment and standardizes tests, including their deficiencies in relation to evaluating ‘the kinds of competence expressed in authentic, “real life” situations beyond school’ or to measure ‘worthwhile knowledge and mastery’ (Archbald and Newmann, 1988). Archbald and Newmann then proposed a set of criteria for designing assessments so that educators might judge the ‘authenticity’ of learners’ achievements, defining ‘authentic academic achievement’ as a form of mastery demonstrated through integrating knowledge and formulating your own ideas, ‘making critiques’, producing ‘discourse, things, (and) performances’,  assembling and interpreting information, collaborating with others, and developing ‘in-depth understanding of a problem rather than passing familiarity with or exposure to pieces of knowledge’.

In summation, the term ‘authenticity’ in these early formulations has several overlapping meanings, namely:

• That assessments could be more ‘authentic’ to professional or disciplinary practice and the challenges that learners may face beyond graduation by being anchored in or replicating ‘real life’ tasks and contexts
• That assessments might be designed in such a way as to become more valid evaluations of ‘authentic academic achievement’ on tasks, problems, and challenges that are ‘worthwhile, significant, and meaningful’ and provide learners with opportunities to demonstrate competence, criticality, autonomy, knowledge integration and more ‘in-depth understanding’ than a standardized test can reveal (Newmann, 1991)

In essence, to cite a 1999 paper by J. Joy Cumming and Graham S. Maxwell, the two ‘major theoretical considerations’ that this perspective on assessment seeks to address are the validity or the ‘appropriateness of assessment tasks as indicators of intended learning outcomes’, particularly in relation to ‘cultivating the kinds of higher-order thinking and problem-solving capacities useful both to individuals and to society’ (Newmann, 1992), and ‘the need for teaching and learning to be contextualised and meaningful for students’ (Cummings & Maxwell, 1999).

Authenticity and ‘Performance’

In a review of the literature and of the concept of ‘authentic assessment’, Cuming et al (1999) write that a ‘dominant construction of authenticity identifies authentic achievement and authentic assessment with performance assessment (where …) performance is the execution of some task or process which has to be assessed through actual demonstration, that is, a productive activity’.  Wiggins (1993) described authentic assessment as the direct examination of ‘student performance on worthy intellectual tasks’ which require them to be ‘effective performers with acquired knowledge’. Here, he was using this term ‘performance’ to denote the importance of directly assessing learners’ execution, demonstration, or competence in a completing a complex task or producing a ‘polished performance or product’ that might mirror a professional or disciplinary challenge more effectively than a traditional assessment that rewards recall of information and relies on indirect proxy measures of the skill, knowledge or competency we wish to evaluate.

‘Performance assessment’ and ‘authentic assessment’, during this period at least, were often used interchangeably, though it is worth noting that performance assessments, which involve students demonstrating their learning through observable tasks and activities (e.g. presentations, debates, performances, demonstrations of technical skills or processes) are not always necessarily ‘authentic’ as they may not mirror professional contexts or applications, or evaluate learners higher-order cognitive abilities. In a 1992 paper on the difference between authentic and performance assessment, Carol A Meyer wrote that although both labels ‘might appropriately apply to some types of assessment, they are not synonymous’. She went on to write that in order to judge the ‘authenticity’ of an assessment we would need to ask ourselves “authentic to what?”, adding that though in both forms a learner is expected to ‘complete or demonstrate a desired behaviour’, in an authentic assessment there is an expectation that this would be anchored in a ‘real-life context’, that the ‘locus of control lies with the student’, and that the task is sufficiently complex to stimulate learners’ critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity.

Authenticity and ‘Real World’ Tasks’.

‘Authentic assessment aims to integrate what happens in the classroom with employment, replicating the tasks and performance standards typically faced by professionals in the world of work’ (Villarroel et al, 2018)

In a 2023 blogpost on pragmatic approaches to authentic assessment, Kay Sambell and Sally Brown identified a common tendency in much more recent scholarship to ‘promote an understanding of authentic assessment in HE as involving what are labelled ‘real world tasks’, where ‘the sense of realism referred to’ is ‘typically conflated with the world of work and employability’ (Sambell and Brown, 2023).

An extensive literature on ‘authentic’ assessment has developed since its emergence from debates on standardized testing in the late nineteen eighties, and though no single, universally accepted definition has emerged, a theme that cuts across most writing on authenticity related to the importance of ‘realism’, and tasks that ‘mimic’, ‘resemble’, or have ‘fidelity’ to ‘real world’ challenges and contexts, as a core dimension of designing assessments for authenticity. In their 2014 attempt to distil the ‘critical elements’ of authenticity into a useable framework for assessment design, Ashford Rowe et al linked the imperative for more authentic approaches to growing demands for higher education to demonstrate ‘its continued value to the broader community, especially employers’ and to align ‘learning and teaching outcomes with industry expectations’. One of the key ways in which this can be achieved through assessment design, they suggest, is to present learners with tasks that provide them with opportunities to demonstrate the ‘a broader range of skills’ ideally in a context or ‘authentic environment’ designed ‘to stimulate and measure a real-world test of ability’ aligned to a professional setting or ‘work-related application’. 

Similarly, in another 2018 review of the literature on authentic assessment, and attempt to elaborate a multidimensional framework for its design, written by Veronica Villarroel et al, describes authenticity as a matter of ‘realism’, ‘contextualisation’, and ‘problematisation’, where realism denotes ‘linking knowledge with everyday life and work’, contextualisation ‘characterises situations where knowledge can be applied in an analytical and thoughtful way’, and problematisation ‘invokes a sense that what is learned can be used to solve a problem or meet a need’. In other words, authentic assessments are those that closely mirror real-world situations and present learners with tasks that have fidelity to genuine professional challenges and foster their critical engagement with complex, meaningful problems.

You can read more about this in our entry on ‘realism’ below.

Expanding our understanding

More recently, we have seen several provocative challenges to the concept of authenticity in assessment from those who regard it as a vague, all-encompassing idea (Arnold and Croxford, 2024) an often uncritically employed ‘educational panacea’ (Fawns et al, 2024) or a signifier for a perceived orthodoxy that has emerged on its role in enhancing graduate employability and work-readiness (McArthur 2022). The most notable of these, arguably, is Jan McArthur’s 2022 invitation for us to ‘rethink’ authentic assessment and develop a deeper and more holistic understanding that goes beyond its associations with the ‘so-called real world’ and a tendency to regard assessment tasks as ‘obviously worth doing if this is what the employer wants’. She makes the case for a ‘more holistic and richer concept’ based on an expanded definition that focused equally on the benefits of authentic assessment for ‘individual students’ and to ‘the larger society of which they are a part’ and on its ‘social value’, which she explains ‘encompasses but is not limited to economic value’.  You can read more about this in our entries (below) on ‘realism’ and ‘lifewide learning’.

Works Cited

Doug A. Archbald & Fred M. Newmann (1988) ‘What is Authentic Academic Achievement’ in ‘Beyond Standardized Testing: Assessing Authentic Academic Achievement in the Secondary School’ (Book chapter, see link)

Lydia Arnold and James Croxford (2024) ‘Is it time to stop talking about authentic assessment’ (Paper, see link)

Kevin Ashford-Rowe, Janice Herrington & Christine Brown (2013) ‘Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment’ (Research article, see link)

Joy Cumming & Graham S. Maxwell (1999) ‘Contextualising Authentic Assessment’ (Paper, see link)

Tim Fawns, Margaret Bearman, Philip Dawson, Juuso Henrik Nieminen, Kevin Ashford-Rowe, Kieth Willey, Lasse X Jensen, Crina Damsa, Nona Press (2024) ‘Authentic Assessment: from panacea to criticality’ (Paper, see link)

Judith T.M. Gulikers, Theo J. Bastiaens & Paul A. Kirschner (2004) ‘A five-dimensional framework for authentic assessment’ (Research article, see link)

Jan McArthur (2022) ‘Rethinking authentic assessment: work, well-being, and society’ (Article, see link)

Fred Newmann (1991) ‘Linking Restructuring to Authentic Student Achievement’ (Article, see link)

Realism in Authentic Assessment

In a 2023 blogpost on pragmatic approaches to authentic assessment, Kay Sambell and Sally Brown identified a common tendency in much scholarship to ‘promote an understanding of authentic assessment in HE as involving what are labelled ‘real world tasks’, where ‘the sense of realism referred to’ is ‘typically conflated with the world of work and employability’ (Sambell and Brown, 2023). Indeed, this observation is supported by the definitions of authenticity offered by many of the most seminal authors in this space:

‘Authentic assessment aims to integrate what happens in the classroom with employment, replicating the tasks and performance standards typically faced by professionals in the world of work’ (Wiggins 1990)

An authentic assessment requires students to use and demonstrate the same (kind of) competencies, or combinations of knowledge, skills and attitudes, that are applied in the criterion situation in professional life’ (Gulikers et al, 2004)

‘(Authentic assessment is) a form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills’ (Mueller, 2018)

The first documented use of the term ‘authentic assessment’ is generally attributed to the late American educator and reformer Grant Wiggins and his 1989 article ‘Teaching to the (Authentic) Test’. Wiggins' article emerged from, and fed into, a wider trans-Atlantic debate about the need to reform assessment in schools, and to offer alternatives to traditional, high-stakes standardized tests. In their place, he advocated for forms of assessment that would ‘test those capacities and habits we think are essential, and test them in context’, making learners ‘replicate, within reason, the challenges at the heart of each academic discipline and let them be – authentic’. In Wiggins’ case, he was arguing for moving away from ‘content based’ teaching and testing towards modelling ‘representative challenges’ for learners, in contexts that replicate or are analogous to those encountered in life outside of conventional forms of assessment that have been contrived, primarily, to make grading ‘fair, efficient, and objective’. Namely, the kinds of ‘tests’ and ‘challenges’ encountered by real people in professional practice and the world of work.

Though Wiggins would later write about authentic assessment that 'I believe the phrase was of my coinage' (2014) its first published use, he suggested, was in a 1988 volume by his colleagues Fred Newman and Doug Archbald in a book chapter titled ‘What is Authentic Academic Achievement’. In this publication, Newman and Archbald wrote that a critical issue with assessment was that it often neglected 'the kinds of competence expressed in authentic, "real life" situations beyond school' such as speaking, writing, reading, and solving problems’. Much traditional assessment, they argued, furnished us with indicators that 'communicate very little about the quality or substance of students' specific accomplishments' because they tend not to engage learners in 'tasks that are worthwhile, significant, and meaningful - in short, authentic' (Archbald & Newmann, 1988).

Many years later, Wiggins would argue that 'tests don't just measure absorption of facts. They teach what we value' (Wiggins, 2006) meaning that, in addition to driving instruction, our approaches to assessment also drive students' learning and learning behaviours and may inadvertently signal to them that performing well in tests or exams is worthwhile for its own sake.  In contrast, he advocated for the need to design assessments that model or replicate the authentic 'intellectual challenges' at 'the heart of a discipline' (Wiggins, 1989) or 'facing a person in the field' (Wiggins, 1989) so that our assessments might provide more authentic measures of what 'students can actually do' with what they have learned and signal to them the 'actual performances we want them to be good at' if we wish for them to excel in an academic discipline, professional practice, or life more broadly. 

‘All tests should involve students in the actual challenges, standards, and habits needed for success in the academic disciplines or in the workplace’ (Wiggins, 2011).

Though these early theorists did not conceptualise ‘authenticity’ primarily in terms of its connection to professional practice and the work place, they made strong arguments for the importance of designing assessments that mirrored ‘real world’ tasks and captured the complexity of the kinds of ‘intellectual challenges’ that people faced ‘in the field’, in their disciplines, in the workplace, or in daily life, laying the groundwork for the close association between ‘authenticity’ and ‘real world tasks’ that would characterise much of the literature to come.

Authentic Assessment and the ‘Real World’ of Work

In the intervening years, a substantial body of research on authentic assessment has developed as the term has entered into mainstream discourse on teaching and learning as what some have described as a ‘buzzword’ (McArthur, 2022; Arnold & Croxford, 2024) or ‘panacea concept’ (Fawns et al, 2024). In her 2022 paper, Jan McArthur set out to develop a ‘deeper’ and more holistic understanding of ‘authentic assessment’ and, in reviewing the key literature in this area, identified a prevailing or ‘common’ understanding of the term as denoting an approach to assessment that involved ‘real-world tasks’. Additionally, she suggested that this understanding was premised on a ‘narrow conflation’ of the ‘real world’ with ‘the world of work’ to the extent that authentic assessment was generally championed as a strategy for enhancing graduate employability and career readiness, above all else.

In their 2014 attempt to distil the ‘critical elements’ of authenticity into a useable framework for assessment design, Ashford Rowe et al linked the imperative for more authentic approaches to growing demands for higher education to demonstrate ‘its continued value to the broader community, especially employers’ and to align ‘learning and teaching outcomes with industry expectations’. One of the key ways in which this can be achieved through assessment design, they suggest, is to present learners with tasks that provide them with opportunities to demonstrate the ‘a broader range of skills’ ideally in a context or ‘authentic environment’ designed ‘to stimulate and measure a real-world test of ability’ aligned to a professional setting or ‘work-related application’.  

Another key 2017 systematic review of the literature on authentic assessment, and attempt to elaborate a multidimensional framework for its design, written by Veronica Villarroel et al, describes authenticity as a matter of ‘realism’, ‘contextualisation’, and ‘problematisation’, where realism denotes ‘linking knowledge with everyday life and work’, contextualisation ‘characterises situations where knowledge can be applied in an analytical and thoughtful way’, and problematisation ‘invokes a sense that what is learned can be used to solve a problem or meet a need’. In other words, authentic assessments are those that closely mirror real-world situations and present learners with tasks that have fidelity to genuine professional challenges and foster their critical engagement with complex, meaningful problems.

The authors go on to categorise their ‘characteristics’ of authentic assessment under the three broad headings of ‘realism’, ‘cognitive challenge’, and ‘feedback’. Realism here is used to signify the integration of a ‘real context’ to anchor or frame the problem or challenge presented to learners, but also more generally signified that the task to be solved is ‘similar to what is faced in real and/or professional life’. The two key ways in which ‘realism’ can be achieved in assessment design, they argue, are by (1) incorporating a ‘realistic context’ in any assessment type, such as in the case of a case analysis, client project, or live problem or (2) through the creation of a ‘performance-based task’ where ‘students produce work or demonstrate knowledge, understanding and skills in activities that are close to the profession’. Examples of this might include professional role plays, client projects, design challenges, creative performances, research projects, or applied industry-standard tasks. The key factor in achieving this level of authentic ‘realism’ is that the assessment is a ‘true representation’ or ‘authentic simulation’ of a real professional task.

A shift from ‘realism’ to ‘relevance’?

More recently, there have been concerted calls in the literature on authentic assessment to move beyond ‘fixating on realism and on mimicking work as its key tenets’ (Ajjawai et al 2023) and not to limit our understanding of authenticity to approximating ‘ways of applying knowledge and skills that graduates would use in the professions and workplace’ (McArthur, 2022).

Lydia Arnold (2022) argues that we might more profitably understand authenticity through the lens of what she calls ‘relevance’, suggesting that rather than designing assessments that closely resemble or mimic professional tasks we ought to be asking deeper questions about the ‘relevance’ of our assessments to future employment, but also to the advancement of the discipline, our collective future, and critically learners’ ‘individual aspiration’.

Jan McArthur (2022) makes similar appeal to view realism and relevance in authentic assessment more expansively, shifting away from an instrumentalist over-emphasis on aligning assessment with employer needs, and focusing on the holistic development of learners and the needs of society more broadly. And though McArthur writes that ‘the existing scholarship on authentic assessment is rich and genuinely directed to students’ best interests’, she cautions that its conflation of the ‘real world’ with the ‘world of work’ as it currently exists may prioritise ‘employer expectation’, industry-specific skills, and short-term employability over students’ broader development as adaptable, lifelong learners.  Further to this, she argues that ‘portrayed in this rarified way, the real world becomes something we cannot change’ and that ‘students must accept (…) as given’ with the result that we run the risk of communicating to learners that we are preparing them for a future that they cannot ‘shape or influence’. Echoing Arnold, McArthur suggests that authenticity needs to be conceived in terms of its relevance to learners and not just external stakeholders like employers, so as to support their holistic intellectual, ethical and personal development.

Works Cited

Doug A. Archbald & Fred M. Newmann (1988) ‘What is Authentic Academic Achievement’ in ‘Beyond Standardized Testing: Assessing Authentic Academic Achievement in the Secondary School’ (Book chapter, see link)

Rola Ajjawi, Margaret Bearman, Mollie Dollinger, Joanna Tai, David Boud and Aneta Hayes (2023) ‘Reconsidering the role of authenticity in assessment in higher education’ (Online call for papers, see link)

Lydia Arnold and James Croxford (2024) ‘Is it time to stop talking about authentic assessment’ (Paper, see link)

Lydia Arnold (2022) ‘Expanded Assessment Top Trumps’ (Online resource, see link)

Kevin Ashford-Rowe, Janice Herrington & Christine Brown (2013) ‘Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment’ (Research article, see link)

Tim Fawns, Margaret Bearman, Philip Dawson, Juuso Henrik Nieminen, Kevin Ashford-Rowe, Kieth Willey, Lasse X Jensen, Crina Damsa, Nona Press (2024) ‘Authentic Assessment: from panacea to criticality’ (Paper, see link)

Judith T.M. Gulikers, Theo J. Bastiaens & Paul A. Kirschner (2004) ‘A five-dimensional framework for authentic assessment’ (Research article, see link)

Jan McArthur (2022) ‘Rethinking authentic assessment: work, well-being, and society’ (Article, see link)

John Mueller (2018) ‘What is Authentic Assessment’ in ‘Authentic Assessment Toolkit’ (Web Resource: See Link).

Kay Sambell and Sally Brown (2023) ‘Working towards more authentic assessment: a pragmatic approach to choosing alternatives that are right for you’ (Blogpost, see link)

Verónica Villarroel, Susan Bloxham, Daniela Bruna, Carola Bruna & Constanza Herrera-Seda (2017) ‘Authentic assessment: creating a blueprint for course design’ (Research Article, see link)

Grant Wiggins (1990)’The Case for Authentic Assessment’ (Article: see link);  (1989) ‘Teaching to the (Authentic) Test (Article, see link); (2014) ‘Authenticity in assessment, (re-)defined and explained’ (Online article, link here); (2006) ‘Healthier Testing Made Easy: The Idea of Authentic Assessment’ (Online article, link here); (2011) ‘A True Test: Toward More Authentic and Equitable Assessment’ (Article, see link).

Cognitive Challenge: What is it?

In our previous entry, we established that ‘authenticity’ in assessment is achieved by providing learners with opportunities to apply their knowledge, skills, and competencies to problems, tasks, and challenges that, to varying degrees, resemble or replicate those encountered by professionals and lifelong learners in ‘real life’ and ‘real work’ situations.

‘Realism’ then is often said to be a cornerstone of authenticity in assessment, with our own Authentic Assessment Framework pointing to the importance of positioning learners within ‘realistic’ situations or scenarios that mirror, and prepare them for, professional, and disciplinary contexts outside of college.  There are various ways to achieve a sense of ‘realism’ in an assessment design, such as presenting students with a real-world problem to apply their learning to, or immersing them in an assessment with tasks, tools, and operating environments that simulate or have ‘fidelity’ to professional life.  

Beyond this, however, many theorists have highlighted the importance of ‘cognitively challenging’ tasks as a foundational component of authenticity in assessment. Though we will elaborate on what this means below, in essence it points to the importance of going beyond the potentially surface-level realism of simulating a professional environment or setting to providing students with opportunities to ‘think and do’ like professionals, that is to analyse information, make connections between ideas, reason and solve problems, communicate and defend their decisions, and learn form their mistakes in ways that resemble the mental rigours of professional practice. Put more plainly, authentic assessments provide opportunities for students to ‘think, act, and communicate like experts in the subject or discipline’ (Koh, 2017)

‘Cognitive Challenge’ and ‘Higher Order Thinking Skills’

‘Within reasonable and reachable limits, a real test replicates the authentic intellectual challenges facing a person in the field’ (Grant Wiggins, 1989)

One of the earliest theorists of authentic assessment, Grant Wiggins, advocated for the design of assessments that modelled or replicated the ‘authentic intellectual challenges’ at ‘the heart of a discipline’ or ‘facing a person in the field’ (Wiggins, 1989). In this early example, Wiggins used the term ‘challenge’ to denote the need for assessments to stimulate so-called ‘higher order’ thinking skills through tasks with ‘cognitive demands’, or mental effort and complexity, that mirrored the thinking required by graduates in professional and real-life contexts. At the time, Wiggins compared this favourably to the practice of standardized testing which often rewarded so-called ‘low level’ cognitive skills such as memorising and recalling facts and information, and understanding concepts, rather than ‘higher order’ thinking skills vital in real-world, professional contexts.

Wiggins’ work, and much of the more recent literature on authentic assessment, draw on the contributions of a tradition in educational psychology (exemplified by figures like Benjamin Bloom) where the design of learning and assessment activities are evaluated through the lens of a ‘taxonomy’ of educational goals classified hierarchically according to different levels of ‘cognitive complexity’, ranging from ‘lower order’ skills such as ‘recognizing and recalling facts’ and comprehension to ‘higher order’ skills such as applying and analysing information, judging the value of information or ideas (‘evaluation’) and synthesizing or combining ideas to ‘create’ new knowledge. More information about ‘Bloom’s Taxonomy’ can be found in this TU Dublin LibGuide on Critical Thinking .

Knowledge Transfer, Metacognition, and Self-Regulation

In an influential review of the ‘abundance of research on authenticity in assessment’, Ashford-Rowe, Herrington and Brown (2014) established eight ‘critical elements’ that distinguish ‘authentic’ assessments, including the principles that authentic assessment ‘should be challenging’, ‘should ensure the transfer of knowledge’, and should include ‘metacognition (…) as a component’. They describe a ‘challenging’ assessment, as per Wiggins’ earlier definition, as one that goes beyond exclusively evaluating ‘low level’ cognitive skills, like ‘rote memorization’ and instead requires learners to ‘demonstrate their ability to analyse the task and synthesize, from a range of skills and knowledge that they have acquired, those which will be necessary for the completion of a specific outcome’, particularly where the ‘potentially correct response may not always be clear cut or obvious’. This isn’t, of course, to say that routine tasks are not part of many peoples’ day-to-day worklives, or that so-called ‘low level’ cognitive skills are without value, but rather to suggest that in most 21^st century work settings, people often encounter novel problems and complex situations that require them to make decisions about how best to address a challenge or solve a problem. Further to this, by challenging learners with tasks and problems that invite them to select and utilize things that they have learned in one situation and apply them to a novel one, where the correct solution is not always clear, you are fostering the potential both for ‘knowledge transfer’ and ‘metacognition’.

'The ongoing monitoring of learning via self-assessment or self-evaluation can increase overall understanding, and improve performance (…) in a professional setting, the ability to evaluate and self-monitor tasks is critical to independent work performance’ (Ashford Rowe et al)

The first of these terms, ‘knowledge transfer’, denotes the ability of learners to apply knowledge and skill learned in one context to a new or different situation, a skill that is widely recognised as a key competency for navigating the complexities of 21^st century work, and life. By fixing on this as a key characteristic of authentic assessment, we may say that evaluating and developing learners’ abilities to apply, adapt, and ‘transfer’ knowledge effectively to new problems and situations should be central to the purpose of assessment. Moreover, it is widely argued that inviting learners to reflect on and adapt their strategies to diverse contexts in creative ways encourages ‘metacognition’ or ‘thinking about thinking’. Thinking about one’s own thinking and having an awareness and understanding of one’s own learning, has the potential to empower students to become better critical thinkers, with increased ‘self-regulation’, or responsibility for and control over, and self-confidence about, their learning process and strategies. Self-regulating learners are variously reported to have a greater awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses, and a stronger ability to evaluate their own progress, check their understanding, identify gaps in their knowledge, set goals, evaluate their own success and critically reflect and adapt their strategies to learning and assessment tasks.

‘Authentic assessment is designed to promote the use of higher order cognitive skills related to using, modifying or rebuilding knowledge into something new’ (Villarroel et al, 2017)

This perspective on the importance of cognitive challenge to authentic assessment is also borne out by a seminal 2017 paper by Veronica Villarroel et al in which the authors undertook a systematic review of the literature on authenticity (published between 1988 and 2015) for the purpose of delineating its ‘core concepts’ and ‘essential design dimensions’. Villarroel et al ultimately identified thirteen ‘consistent characteristics of authentic assessment’ and classified these according to three conceptual dimensions: ‘realism’, ‘cognitive challenge’, and ‘evaluative judgement’. A cognitively challenging assessment is described as one that ‘go(s) beyond the textual reproduction of fragmented and low order content’ and ‘moving towards’ making connections between existing and new ideas, problem-solving, application of knowledge, decision-making, and engaging in critical and reflective analysis. Further to this, they point to the value of assessments that require that foster knowledge transfer and so cultivate in learners ‘skills that can be used in contexts other than academic ones that are required and valued in the world beyond the university’ (Villaroel et al).

Works Cited

Grant Wiggins (1989) ‘A True Test: Toward More Authentic and Equitable Assessment’ (Research article, see link for 2011 online publication)

Kim. H Koh (2017) ‘Authentic Assessment’, Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Education (Reference article: See link)

Judith T.M. Gulikers, Theo J. Bastiaens & Paul A. Kirschner (2004) ‘A five-dimensional framework for authentic assessment’ (Research article, see link)

Kevin Ashford-Rowe, Janice Herrington & Christine Brown (2013) ‘Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment’ (Research article, see link)

Verónica Villarroel, Susan Bloxham, Daniela Bruna, Carola Bruna & Constanza Herrera-Seda (2017) ‘Authentic assessment: creating a blueprint for course design’ (Research Article, see link)

TU Dublin Library Services, ‘Bloom and Critical Thinking’ in ‘Critical Thinking’ LibGuide (See link)

Complex Problems

In a 2000 paper intended to ‘introduce issues and concerns related to problem solving to the instructional design community’, David Jonassen argued that despite problem-solving being ‘generally regarded as the most important cognitive activity in everyday and professional contexts’ and ‘the most important learning outcomes for life’, ‘learning to solve problems’, or at least problems that aren’t well-structured*’ is an often-neglected activity in formal education settings. Though not explicitly referencing authenticity, Jonassen echoes some of the earliest scholars of authentic assessment when he writes that:

‘Virtually everyone, in their everyday lives, regularly solves problems. Few, if any, people are rewarded in their professional lives for memorizing information and completing examinations, yet examinations are the primary arbiter of success ins society’ (Jonassen, 2000, 63).

* Jonassen (2000) describes a ‘well-structured’ problem as one which consists of ‘A well-defined initial state (what is known), a known goal state (nature of the solution well defined), and a constrained set of logical operators (known procedure for solving)’. In other words, with a well-structured problem you know quite clearly, what the problem is, have all of the information you need to solve it, and have a clear pathway to a solution.   

But scholarship on authentic assessment consistently underscores the importance of engaging learners with ‘complex’, ‘open-ended’, ‘ill-defined’, and ‘ill-structured’ problems to foster higher-order cognitive development in important areas like critical thinking, analysis and evaluation, the synthesis and creation of knowledge, decision-making, adaptability, and metacognition.

Though the nuances of these different types of problems may be beyond the scope of this piece of writing, what they share are:

How do complex or ill-defined problems aid learning?  And what makes them ‘authentic’?

From its inception, theorists of authentic assessment have highlighted the importance of presenting learners with tasks that mirror the ‘complexity’ of the real-world challenges faced by professionals, with Grant Wiggins writing that authentic assessments were ‘representative challenges within a given discipline’ designed ‘to emphasize realistic (but fair) complexity’ and involving ‘somewhat ambiguous, ill structured tasks or problems’ (Grant Wiggins, 1989). For him, inviting learners to ‘pose, tackle, and solve slightly ambiguous problems’ represented a much more effective way to measure ‘evidence of knowing’, ‘mastery’, or ‘thoughtful understanding’ than requiring learners to produce written or verbal answers ‘on cue’. Complex problems, which were more faithful or ‘authentic’ to the rigours of professional life, provided learners with opportunities to activate higher-order cognitive abilities such as ‘Marshalling evidence, arranging arguments, and taking purposeful action to address problems’, ‘criticizing and extending knowledge’ and demonstrating ‘judgement’, adaptability and ‘responsiveness to the problem at hand’.

Other authors have subsequently highlighted the importance of offering learners authentic opportunities to engage with ‘complex’ problems and ‘ill-defined’ tasks that better reflect the ways in which knowledge us used in real professional settings and ‘real life’ (Herrington and Oliver, 2010) and problems that are characterized by complexity, ‘multidisciplinary, ill-structuredness, and having multiple possible solutions’ (Gulikers et al, 2004). In a 2019 paper on the role of authentic assessment tasks in problem-based learning, Koh et al  describe authentic assessment tasks as opportunities for enabling learners to ‘engage in rigorous intellectual discourse and demonstration of competencies and understandings through solving authentic or real-world problems’ and to activate essential 21^st century higher-order competencies such as ‘critical thinking, complex problem solving, creativity and innovation, effective communication, and collaboration’. Citing Wiggins, Koh et al reaffirm the view that authentic assessments can empower learners to develop higher-order thinking skills by engaging with ‘contextualised, complex intellectual challenges’ that invite them to apply their knowledge in ‘messy, ill-structured contexts’ that reward creativity, criticality, and evaluative judgement* and self-directed learning.

* Evaluative judgement refers to the learners’ ability to make informed decisions about the quality, value, or merit of one’s own work, and that of others, including one’s approach to solving problems. You can learn more about evaluative judgement and how it relates to authenticity in assessment below.

Works cited

Judith T.M. Gulikers, Theo J. Bastiaens & Paul A. Kirschner (2004) ‘A five-dimensional framework for authentic assessment’ (Research article, see link)

Jan Herrington & Ron Oliver (2000) ‘An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments’ (Paper, see link)

David H. Jonassen (2000) ‘Toward a Design Theory of Problem Solving’ (Paper, see link)

David H. Jonassen (1997) ‘Instructional design models for well-structured and III-structured problem-solving learning outcomes’ (Paper, see link)

Koh, K., Delanoy, N., Bene, R., Thomas, C., Danysk, G., Hone, G., Turner, J., & Chapman, O (2019)  The role of authentic assessment tasks in problem-based learning (Paper, see link)

Grant Wiggins (1989) ‘A True Test: Toward More Authentic and Equitable Assessment’ (Paper, see link for 2011 online publication)

Evaluative Judgement

Identified by Villarroel et al (2018) as one of the ‘characteristics most frequently related to authentic assessment’ in the literature, ‘evaluative judgement’ is widely regarded as a key driver for the development of students’ ‘capacity for independent judgement as well as problem-solving, self-appraisal and reflection’ and ‘their lifelong capability to assess and regulate their learning and performance’ (Villarroel et al, 2018).

‘Evaluative Judgement is the capability to make decisions about the quality of work of oneself and others’ (Tai et al, 2017).

Evaluative judgment represents a key metacognitive competency and a critical skill for self-regulated learning insofar as the ability to make informed assessments of the quality of their own work, and that of others, empowers learners to reflect on and refine their learning strategies and approaches to assessment with confidence and autonomy.

Traditional approaches to assessment design are sometimes critiqued for positioning learners as ‘passive recipients of feedback, and ‘producing graduates dependent on others’ assessment of their work’ (Tai et al, 2017) with the potential to impede learners’ assessment literacy during their studies, and in the longer term, their ability to develop as lifelong learners ‘who take responsibility for their own learning and direct it accordingly’ (Tai et al, 2017).

As a lifelong learning concept, evaluative judgement has been described as an important foundation for continuing personal and professional development owing to the need for professionals to ‘make sound evaluative judgements – of what they need to learn, about the abilities they need to develop, the usefulness of the resources they are able to access, and of the progress they have made and are making in their self-managed development’  (Cowan, 2010).

Some of principal ways in which learners’ evaluative judgement can be developed through assessment practice, outlined in Tai et al (2017), include learner self-assessment, peer assessment and review, use of assessment rubrics, and exemplars. Additionally, engaging learners critically with assessment criteria and involving them in in their design or modification has the potential to encourage deeper learning and to foster in learners a greater appreciation for the value of a task beyond the ‘need for course completion’ (Leslie and Gorman, 2014). Additionally, Villarroel et al (2017) as part of a proposed model for building authentic assessments in the university, advocate for co-creating assessment criteria with learners, and fostering ‘dialogue about standards’, such as through engaging them in ‘marking using assessment criteria and exemplar assignments. Furthermore, they endorse providing opportunities for ‘judgement-making practice’ through forms of self and peer assessment, and exemplar evaluation, from which students can learn to identify criteria and standards by which to evaluate the quality of their work independently (see also Carless et al, 2017).

Evaluative Judgement and Generative AI

In a recent paper published by Bearman et al (2024) the authors articulate a ‘pressingly Important’ need for every learner to develop the requisite skills in evaluative judgment so that they might be able to reliability and accurately appraise the quality and credibility of generative AI outputs. Evaluative judgement, they argue, takes on a ‘particular significance’ in relation to AI due to the need for human oversight, as the ‘arbiters of quality’ of AI generated content and systems. Further to this, they proffer that though ‘assessing generative AI outputs’ represents the most obvious way for learners to develop evaluative judgements, students may also use AI tools to evaluate their own use of such tools and to discern ‘good practice’ and appropriate use, including effective prompting. Generative AI tools may also be used as a sounding board for learners to query the their own evaluative judgements, such as in the case of self-assessing work against a marking rubric, or to contrast and ‘calibrate’ their appraisals against AI-produced exemplars.

Works Cited

Margaret Bearman, Joanna Tai, Phillip Dawson, David Boud, Rola Ajjawai (2024) ‘Developing evaluative judgement for a time of generative artificial intelligence’ (Paper, see link).

Carless, D., Chan, K.K.H., To, J., Lo, M. & E. Barrett (2018) ‘Developing students’ capacities for evaluative judgement through analysing exemplars’ (Book chapter, see link).

John Cowan (2010) ‘Developing the ability for making evaluative judgements’ (Article, see link).

Laura J. Leslie and Paul C. Gorman (2014) ‘Collaborative design of assessment criteria to improve undergraduate student engagement and performance’ (Paper, see link)

Joanna Tai, Rola Ajjawi, David Boud, Phillip Dawson & Ernesto Panadero (2017) ‘Developing evaluative judgement: enabling students to make decisions about the quality of work’ (Article, see link).

Verónica Villarroel, Susan Bloxham, Daniela Bruna, Carola Bruna & Constanza Herrera-Seda (2017) ‘Authentic assessment: creating a blueprint for course design’ (Research Article, see link)

The Role of Feedback in Authentic Assessment

Authentic assessments engage learners in processes of providing, receiving, and acting on feedback that resemble those of their discipline, profession, workplace, or other life-wide learning setting. In addition to better preparing them for the world of work, these experiences can support and develop learners’ evaluative judgement, metacognitive abilities, and affective resilience.  ‘Feedback processes’ represent one of the four dimensions of TU Dublin’s Authentic Assessment Framework, which highlights the imperative to provide learners with opportunities to engage with:

• Authentic feedback practices that resemble the processes, modes, and enactments of feedback that graduates will encounter in the workplace and in other significant settings, better preparing them for lifelong learning.
• Authentic evaluative experiences that support the development of key evaluative judgement* competencies for professional practice and lifelong learning. This entails making reasoned judgements regarding, and being open to questions about, one’s work

In their influential 2017 exploration of the concept of authentic assessment, Villarroel et al describe ‘evaluative judgement’ as one of three core dimensions of authenticity, alongside ‘realism’ and ‘cognitive challenge’. Evaluative judgement is defined as the capability to make informed judgements about the quality of one’s own work, and that of others (Tai et al, 2017) and the development of this competency is generally held up to be essential for graduates to thrive as self-regulating, lifelong learners. Villarroel et al write that formative assessment provides the necessary scaffolding for the development of evaluative judgement capabilities, particularly when learners are empowered to ‘learn about quality’ and engage critically with explicit criteria for assessment,  have opportunities for self-appraisal and reflection, peer-assessment, and ‘creating and using feedback to improve their understanding of quality and to self-regulated their own work accordingly’ (Villarroel et al, 2017). They also advocate for a shift away from designing assessments that position learners as passive recipients of feedback, to developing assessments in which feedback is part of an ‘assessment cycle’ that involves learners ‘as active in gathering and responding to feedback’, engaging in feedback dialogue, ‘clarifying appropriate criteria’, and making ‘increasingly accurate judgements about their own performance and (decisions) about what changes they need to make’ (Villarroel et al, 2017).

Villarroel et al also draw explicitly on David Boud’s writings on (2010) ‘sustainable assessment’ which he defines as ‘assessment that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of students to meet their own future learning needs’. Here Boud acknowledges the balance to be struck between assessing for grading and ‘certification purposes’ and for preparing students for ‘the learning tasks they may face throughout their lives’.

‘Formative assessment within educational institutions must equip students to be self-initiating seekers and users of formative assessment for their ongoing learning tasks throughout their lifetime’ (Boud, 2010)

For assessment to be ‘sustainable’, that is, to develop learners’ abilities to apply their knowledge and skills and assess and self-regulate their own work in their lives beyond formal education, it is incumbent on educators to think beyond ‘immediate course-related goals’ so that we might ‘provide a secure foundation for lifelong learning’. In practical terms, this entails developing graduates who will not ‘be dependent on teachers or other formal sources of advice’ to guide their work and their learning, and who will be comfortable seeking ‘forms of feedback from their environment (from peers, other practitioners, from written and other sources) and be able to do this ‘in a wide range of settings and in a variety of circumstances’ (Boud, 2010).

‘Authentic Feedback’

In their paper on supporting learners to ‘engage productively in the kinds of feedback practices they may encounter after they graduate’, Dawson et al use the term ‘authentic feedback’ to denote feedback ‘processes which resemble the feedback practices of the discipline, profession, or workplace’ (Dawson et al, 2021). The authors describe a framework, with five dimensions, designed to support the development of authentic feedback processes with the overall goal of preparing learners to effectively understand, respond to, and utilize the diverse types of feedback that they might encounter in professional settings.

In their framework for authentic assessment, Gulikers et al (2004) describe ‘social context’ as an important dimension influencing the authenticity of an assessment. Drawing on Resnick’s (1987) observation that ‘learning and performing out of school mostly takes place in a social system’ and that in life beyond graduation, ‘working together is often the rule rather than the exception’, they argue that any model of authentic assessment must take seriously the idea that the ‘social processes of the assessment resemble the social processes in an equivalent situation’ in a professional, work, or other significant setting. One can infer from this that when ‘designing in’ authentic feedback practices, it is important that we give learners opportunities to engage with feedback in ways that closely mirror or resemble ‘real-world’ professional practices, which often include diverse sources and forms of feedback, iterative, dynamic processes, and an onus on individuals to engage constructively with feedback, and make use of their skills in evaluative judgement.  In simple terms, authentic feedback practices, embedded in relevant professional and social contexts, will support learners to engage with feedback in the way that they might in ‘real life’, to respond to feedback in different forms, from different people, and to engage in ongoing processes of improvement, developing their capacity to judge the quality of their work for themselves.

In practical terms, Dawson et al (2021) write about the need to go beyond using feedback processes that are ‘specific to the academy’ and that are summative of ‘ended-loaded’, to consider mirroring more diverse forms and rhythms of workplace feedback which, in more ‘productive’ work environments, reflect an ‘imperative to act on feedback and demonstrate improvement over time’. Of course, there are infinite possibilities available to our diverse academic disciplines and programmes when it comes to developing feedback practices that ‘resemble’ those of ‘the discipline, profession or workplace’, so authenticity will always be context-dependent and subject to interpretation. The overriding goal of developing more ‘authentic feedback’, they add, is to ‘promote the development of capabilities that transfer effectively from university to the world of work’ and other significant settings.

Dawson et al propose a ‘framework’ for the development of authentic feedback practices that is structured across the following five dimensions:

Works Cited

Kevin Ashford-Rowe, Janice Herrington & Christine Brown (2013) ‘Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment’ (Research article, see link)

David Boud (2010) ‘Sustainable Assessment: rethinking assessment for the learning society’ (Article, see link)

Judith T.M. Gulikers, Theo J. Bastiaens & Paul A. Kirschner (2004) ‘A five-dimensional framework for authentic assessment’ (Research article, see link)

Phillip Dawson, David Carless, Pamela Pui Wah Lee (2012) ‘Authentic feedback: supporting learners to engage in disciplinary feedback practices’ (Article, see link)

Lauren B. Resnick (1987) ‘The 1987 Presidential Address: Learning In School and Out’ (Research article, see link)

Joanna Tai, Rola Ajjawi, David Boud, Phillip Dawson & Ernesto Panadero (2017) ‘Developing evaluative judgement: enabling students to make decisions about the quality of work’ (Paper, see link)

Verónica Villarroel, Susan Bloxham, Daniela Bruna, Carola Bruna & Constanza Herrera-Seda (2017) ‘Authentic assessment: creating a blueprint for course design’ (Research Article, see link)

Lifewide Learning

The definition of authentic assessment develop for TU Dublin by the Prof-ASSESS project describes them as:

‘Meaningful challenging assessments designed to develop the attributes, capabilities and professional skills that prepare our students to become effective life-wide learners and responsible global citizens’

One of the main aims of Prof-ASSESS was to co-create, with our project partners, a consensus definition of authenticity in assessment for TU Dublin. Though, as we’re sure you’ll likely know by now, authenticity is a fluid, highly contextual and contested term. To add complexity, TU Dublin, like all universities, is a smorgasbord of disciplines, practices and perspectives so developing a working definition of authenticity and a common language and direction for promoting and enhancing authentic assessment would always prove to be a knotty challenge.

One interesting development from the Prof-ASSESS project was the emergence of a consensus amongst participants that while preparation for their respective professions was critical, assessments that mimic or replicate the ‘real world’ of work or professional practice lose their long-term value when those realities are so vulnerable to change and disruption. So, it was felt that any framework for, or definition of, authentic assessment should focus not just on professional skills and employability but equally on all aspects of a learners’ development and the cultivation of their ability and desire to learn.

In its current form, then, our definition of authentic assessment used the term ‘lifewide learning’, borrowed and perhaps malappropriated from the literature on lifelong learning, to denote approaches to assessment that foster learners’ ability to contribute to society and prepare them for all aspects of life, not just the workplace or professional employment contexts.

In its original usage, ‘lifewide learning’ refers to meaningful learning that occurs across different areas of life, not limited to formal educational and employment settings. In its broadest sense, it can include learning that takes place in our social, personal, and civil lives, representing an acknowledgement that there are diverse learning opportunities spread across our lived experience that can foster skills development, knowledge acquisition and creation, and holistic personal and professional development.

‘Lifelong learning is a process that starts at birth and extends across the whole lifespan. It provides people of all ages and origins with learning opportunities and activities, responding to their specific needs in different life and professional stages’ (UNESCO, 2024).

‘Lifelong’ learning emphasizes the ‘temporal’ aspect of learning and highlights the importance of individuals learning continually throughout their life-courses, and emphasizes the imperative for people to engage in a continuous process of growth and adaptation at different life stages, ‘lifewide’ learning may be said to call our attention to the ‘breadth’ and ‘scope’ of learning as it occurs, in interconnected ways, in multiple contexts and settings that cut across our live experience in the here and now.

‘As we develop deeper understandings about the sorts of learning and development that are required for living a successful and fulfilled life in a complex modern world, it becomes more and more apparent that our educational institutions need to pay more attention to developing learners as whole people’ (Jackson, 2011).

In a foreword to the volume ‘Learning for a Complex World: A Lifewide Concept of Learning, Education, and Personal Development’, Norman J Jackson describes the idea of ‘lifewideness’ as something that ‘adds value’ to  or complements the ‘well-known concept of lifelong learning’  by focusing our attention on the ‘the learning and development that occurs more or less contemporaneously in multiple and varied places and situations throughout an individual’s life course’.

This emphasis on ‘lifewideness’ and the importance of developing approaches to assessment that cultivate learners more holistically has been echoed in a number of recent publications on authentic assessment which invite educators to go beyond conceptualising authenticity primarily in terms of preparing learners for employability and the workplace towards considering the holistic development of learners and the social value of assessment. One of the more influential voices in this space is Jan McArthur, whose 2022 paper ‘Rethinking authentic assessment: work, well-being, and society’ was critical of a tendency for authentic assessment to me narrowly conflated with the ‘real world’ of work and shorter-term utilitarian concerns for the career-readiness of students and current labour market demands and conditions.

McArthur argues that the literature on authentic assessment, though well-intentioned, may be ‘inadvertently   perpetuating   a narrow    view    of    the    economic    sphere, disarticulated from society’ and a ‘common conflation of real world with the world of work’. She makes the case for a ‘more holistic and richer concept’ based on an expanded definition that focused equally on the benefits of authentic assessment for ‘individual students’ and to ‘the larger society of which they are a part’ and on its ‘social value’, which she explains ‘encompasses but is not limited to economic value’.  Practically, she suggests that this requires us to move beyond ‘focusing on the authentic task’ to a more critical and considered consideration of ‘why that task matters?  

She makes a case for conceptions of authentic assessment that consider the student ‘as a whole person, socially situated, and the ways in which engagement with assessment tasks nurtures both individual and social wellbeing’, and highlights the importance of the relationship between ‘assessment and students’ self-realisation’, as it contributes to ‘their wellbeing, personal and intellectual growth and their development as constructive members of society’. 

Works Cited

Norman J Jackson (2011) in ‘The lifelong and lifewide dimensions of living, learning and developing’ in ‘Learning for a Complex World: A Lifewide Concept of Learning, Education, and Personal Development’ (Edited Book, Online version available here)

Jan McArthur (2022) ‘Rethinking authentic assessment: work, well-being, and society’ (Article, see link)

UNESCO (2024)  ‘What you need to know about lifelong learning’ (Web resource, link)