Authentic Assessment

Authentic assessment is an approach to student assessment that involves the student deeply, is cognitively complex and intrinsically interesting, uses a format that is consistent with how ability is evaluated in the real-world, and evaluates skills and abilities that have value and meaning outside of the classroom or on the job. Educational scholar Grant Wiggins, who is credited with introducing the concept, describes authentic assessment as involving those activities or tasks that people actually do in the real-world. Indeed, authentic is often treated as a synonym for realistic. This entry further defines authentic assessment and discusses how it compares to traditional assessment.

Authentic assessment focuses on how students integrate and apply what they have learned through contextualized tasks. This form of assessment allows students to demonstrate learning individually or by working collaboratively with others to demonstrate competency in authentic settings. Authentic assessment usually describes classroom assessment, but the philosophy has been applied to standardized tests as well.

One goal of authentic assessment is to indicate the extent to which a student’s knowledge and skills can be applied outside of the classroom. It might also be referred to as direct assessment as opposed to traditional formats (such as multiple-choice questions) that seldom require a direct demonstration of knowledge and skills. Because authentic assessment strategies do not focus entirely on recalling facts, students are required to integrate, apply, and self-assess skills and understanding. Student understanding of disciplinary content is desired, but it is also important for students to be able to use the acquired knowledge and skills in the world beyond their classes.

Assessments have to indicate whether students can apply what they have learned in authentic situations. When a student does well on a test of knowledge, this often infers that the student can also apply that knowledge, but that is indirect evidence. Knowledge tests can also provide evidence of knowledge about application, but again that is indirect.

Authentic assessments ask the student to use what the student has learned in a meaningful way. For example, it would not be possible to determine whether students can effectively debate a topic by listening and responding to contrasting views through multiple-choice questions or a description on a written test. Authentic assessment is designed to produce direct evidence in an authentic context. Similarly, authentic assessment [Page 149]can demonstrate whether students can interpret a current news story, calculate potential savings of a proposed budget, test a scientific hypothesis, play a musical instrument, converse in a foreign language, or apply other knowledge and skills they have learned.

Bruce Frey, Vicki Schmitt, and Justin Allen analyzed the concept of authentic as applied to assessment and identified nine dimensions of authenticity used in the literature. Researchers and teacher educators refer to an assessment as authentic when it has several of the following characteristics (Frey, Schmitt, … Allen, 2012, p. 5):

• the context of the assessment
  • realistic activity or context
  • the task is performance based
  • the task is cognitively complex
• the role of the student
  • a defense of the answer or product is required
  • the assessment is formative
  • students collaborate with each other or with the teacher
• the scoring
  • the scoring criteria are known or student developed
  • multiple indicators or portfolios are used for scoring
  • the performance expectation is mastery.

Authentic assessments nearly always are patterned after tasks that require performance of skills, supported by a foundation of required knowledge, at an achievement level at or beyond what is expected in the school classroom. A framework for authentic assessments begins the same way that curriculum for a program would be designed, by asking what students should be able to do as a result of what has been learned. Some examples of authentic assessments include simulations and role plays, lab experiments, budget proposals, application letters, and tasks that solve real-life problems. Students may also be asked to demonstrate learning by creating and producing a newscast, developing a museum exhibit on a specific topic, designing an efficient workflow for planning the prom, judging the efficiency of product manufacturing, carrying out pH tests of water samples, or carrying out similar tasks through which they will use acquired knowledge and skills.

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