![]() ![]() Much of the authentic assessment literature uses a fairly disarticulated and ahistorical sense of authenticity, with little or no reference to the significant philosophical discussions of the term. Interest in authentic assessment also covers many disciplinary fields, including those in STEM, health, and social sciences. Authentic assessment in higher education has been particularly prominent in the UK (Maclellan, 2001 Rust, 2007 Sambell & Brown, 2021 Sambell et al., 2013) and Australia (Ajjawi et al., 2019 Ashford-Rowe et al., 2014 Herrington, 2014 Herrington & Herrington, 1998) however, we can also see engagement in other parts of the world: for example, Chile (Villarroel et al., 2018), Indonesia (Arlianty et al., 2017 Sutadji et al., 2021), Sri Lanka (Karunanayaka & Naidu, 2021), Singapore (Chong et al., 2016), Netherlands (Gulikers et al., 2004), South Africa (Maniram & Maistry, 2018), and Botswana (Oladele, 2011). The increasing international focus on the idea of authentic assessment demonstrates the importance of reflecting deeply on what we do and do not wish to achieve through this form of assessment. ![]() One important way in which contemporary higher education has promoted its relationship with the wider world is through the concept of authentic assessment, which is variously understood as assessment linked to real-world tasks, the world of work, or authentic knowledge. Where Weinstein valorises separation from broader society, today universities around the world are expected to have explicit, close, and direct links to wider society, and particularly the economic realm. The contrast between Weinstein’s, 1975 vision of higher education (in this journal) and prevailing attitudes today is stark. Too close a social involvement can make higher education socially useless (1975, p. For only by preserving this element - which does not mean in practice preserving it in every single corner of higher education but generously spreading it through-out - can it begin to maintain capacities for neutrality and independence, for objectivity and disinterestedness which may make what it has to offer at the same time socially useful. In each generation higher education has to provide exemplars for the next generation of socially uncommitted and irrelevant scholarship, teaching, and research. Senses of achievement can become richer, thus enhancing the students’ sense of self, self-worth, and well-being.įor academic activity in higher education to be self-perpetuating it has to some extent to be unworldly. To achieve this aim, I suggest we move from simply focusing on the authentic task to considering why that task matters? This then enables a shift from the student in isolation to the student as a member of society. I argue that we should move from thinking in terms of either the so-called real world, or the world of work, to focus our justification for authentic assessment on its social value (which encompasses but is not limited to its economic value). Little of this literature actually engages with the rich philosophical debates on authenticity, and in this article, I suggest that this deeper understanding of authenticity can enable us to build on existing work on authentic assessment to develop a more holistic and richer concept that will be more beneficial to individual students and to the larger society of which they are part. There is, however, I argue, a common conflation of real world with the world of work. I consider the origins of the term in the US schooling sector, and how it has developed over time, and in different countries, to today focus in higher education largely on real world tasks. This article seeks a deeper understanding of the concept of authentic assessment which ensures it does not become another educational buzzword, slowly diminishing in real meaning.
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