Sustaining Authentic Assessment (AA): A pilot survey of student perceptions of AA to improve higher order thinking and employability

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Rose, Judy
Duderija, Adis
Griffith University Author(s)
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2024
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Valencia, Spain

Abstract

Authentic assessment (AA) is a reform in higher education that has been less explored from students’ perspectives. In this paper we report findings from a pilot study that explored student perceptions of authentic assessment in the Islam West Relations Major (IWRM) Bachelor of Arts program, at an Australian university. This study used a survey that the authors created to explore two aspects of AA including its capacity to 1) develop higher order thinking skills, and 2) improve employability of students. In addition to surveying student’s attitudes towards AA, this study is the first to ask students to suggest alternative forms of authentic assessment. Students recommended oral presentations, government submissions, briefing papers, study tours, and cross-cultural interviews as providing skills they perceived relevant to their future careers. In contrast, students rated exams, quizzes, and tutorial readings as the least helpful form of knowledge evaluation in terms of higher order thinking and employability skills. Initial findings indicate that undergraduate students show support for authentic assessment, as it develops skills transferable to the workplace and their future careers. Finally, AA is best integrated at both program and curriculum levels as a sustainable education model. This model focuses on developing higher-level critical and creative thinking skills that equip graduates to work on, and find solutions for, complex world problems.

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Proceedings of the First International Conference on Sustainable Energy Education (SEED 2024)

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© The Authors 2024. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one.

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Specialist studies in education

Environmental education curriculum and pedagogy

Environmental education and extension

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Rose, J; Duderija, A, Sustaining Authentic Assessment (AA): A pilot survey of student perceptions of AA to improve higher order thinking and employability, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Sustainable Energy Education (SEED 2024), 2024, pp. 952-960