Part A

A Review of the Literature on Authentic Assessment

Introduction

As with all forms of educational assessment, authentic assessment is appreciated by some

and considered problematic by others. Assessment has long been an integral aspect of education.

It serves to provide teachers, students and parents with a means to see the progress of students;

what they have learned, how well they have learned it and guidelines for the teacher to facilitate

their future progress.

Authentic assessment is also known as performance assessment, appropriate, direct or

alternative assessment. Schuman (1992) agrees that this type of assessment can provide a more

realistic and comprehensive means of assessing students. “Authentic evaluation can provide

more information than any multiple-choice test possibly could. As they promote the thinking

curriculum everyone wants for children, authentic evaluations will provide genuine

accountability.”

Definition of Terms

It is useful here to provide a definition of some of the terms that will be used in this literature

review.

1. Assessment: The term assessment is applied to a wide range of methods by which

information about students is gathered and appraised, including formal testing and analysis.

Gathering information about children as a result of day-to-day informal interactions is part of

teaching and is equally a part of assessment (Humphrey 1991).

The following terms are taken from the research by Dr. Hugh Baird 1

2. Evaluation: This is a process of comparing students with other students or

with a predetermined standard. It is also a process that is used to rank students. Evaluation

which measures student learning in order to identify how well they are learning or how much of

the subject matter they have mastered in order to help them learn more or to help the teacher to

improve ongoing instruction is formative.

Evaluation which tests students' performance to determine students' final overall assimilation of

course material and/or overall instructional method effectiveness is summative.

3. Norm-referenced Evaluation: Norm-referenced evaluation is evaluation based on a

comparison of a student's performance with one or more other student's performance on the same

test.

4. Criterion-referenced evaluation is evaluation based on a comparison of a student's

performance with a preset performance standard which is determined independently of the test,

or test scores.

5. Validity: The validity of a test may be defined as the degree to which a test measures what it

is supposed to measure. Since validity is a matter of degree, it is incorrect to say that a test is

either valid or invalid. All tests have some degree of validity for any purpose for which they are

used; however, some are much more valid than others.

1
These definitions are taken from the following document; Hugh Baird. (1997). “Performance
Assessment for Science Teachers”. Utah State Office of Education. The document can be
found at: http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/curr/science/Perform/Past1.htm
6. Reliability: Reliability refers to the consistency of test results.

7. Rating Scale: Typically, a rating scale consists of a set of characteristics or qualities to be

judged and some type of scale for indicating the degree to which each characteristic is present.

The rating scale itself is merely a reporting device.

A General Review of The Literature on Authentic Assessment

 Previously, students were primarily assessed using standardized testing – tests which

provided students with questions that demanded a choice of either a right or wrong answer.

But, like all facets of society, education too must change and this process has already begun with

authentic assessment. According to Robertson and Valentine (2000), authentic assessment is a

means to assess all students even those with special needs. It is more learner-centered and thus it

improves not only student learning but program and instructor effectiveness. “Authentic

assessment refers to evaluation that makes use of real life tasks instead of contrived test items.”

Therefore, the role of assessment is seen in a much broader context than simply giving a

student a test and waiting to see if they can provide the right answers. In this context,

assessment is a tool which employs the use of real-life tasks and will, in turn drive education in a

much different direction. The use of standardized testing implied that teachers would often have

to teach for the test. That is, teacher instruction and the curriculum would be designed

specifically to teach students the facts or information that would be covered on their various tests

throughout the year. This leads one to the conclusion that education in such a context would be

fact driven – providing students with facts to learn, perhaps even memorize. Ultimately, they

would know what facts they were required to know – those that would be covered on the test.

The concern here is that teaching students in this fashion and testing them in this way

does not really provide them with any chance for creativity, nor does it measure them effectively.

“The current movement toward authentic assessment grows out of concern that standardized tests

do not accurately measure how well students can think and solve problems, what subjects they

know in-depth, or how responsible they are for directing their own learning” (Allen 1993).

Another reason for moving towards authentic assessment has been the concern that

standardized tests merely determine how well one student is doing in comparison to another.
Johnston (1992) opines that this information has no real value in the educational system. “What

we should be interested in is whether each child is growing, not whether he is better than the

child next to him or a child across the district or the country […] evaluating a child’s progress is

instructionally useful and comparing to him or her to someone else is not.”

Craig and McCormick (2002) point out that standardized tests have been criticized for

years due to the fact that “[…] research has proven testing not to be an effective measure of

student learning […].” According to these researchers (Ibid), the primary failure of standardized

testing is that it addresses the question “which child knows more?” Authentic assessment

addresses the question, “how much does my child know?”

Craig and McCormick are not alone in their critique of standardized testing. Much of the

literature on authentic assessment focuses on the failure of standardized testing to provide

students, teachers, parents or even the educational system with information that is truly relevant

or helpful in any fashion.

Other researchers have also reached the conclusion that standardized tests and the

theories of learning that support them do not promote positive learning strategies or outcomes.

Jorgensen’s research (1993) champions authentic assessment as a way of supporting learning

behaviors that are “reflective, constructive and self-regulated.” She goes on to say, “[…] these

adjectives do not describe typical standardized, multiple-choice tests.”

Some have reached the conclusion that standardized testing has been and continues to be

used because it is less expensive to administer and score the results (Robertson and Valentine,

2000). Other researchers agree with this conclusion. Smith, Ryan and Kubs (1993), point out

that cost is definitely a factor when considering performance assessment and may be one of the

reasons some teachers and educators continue to use, or even prefer standardized tests.
 Another factor may be related to the education paradigm itself. Standardized tests have

also been used because of the pedagogical premise that drove education for so long. Noori

(1993, citing Cole 1991) points out the following:

For years tests have been designed to reflect the

positivistic-quantitative paradigm and have been
developed to ensure that children are learning the
‘basics.’ Such tests reflect a curriculum which
focuses on disparate facts and isolated skills with
little attention given to helping students relate their
prior knowledge to instruction. These tests are given
to large numbers of students, are centrally mandated
and composed of multiple choice items, and scored
by machine.

Standardized tests then have been utilized largely because they have been considered practical,

less expensive to employ and more applicable for large numbers of students. Philosophically

however, this form of assessment may also have been a reflection of the way in which students

were taught for so long – to learn the basics, the facts. This rather quantitative approach, as

Noori points out, has been an adjunct to standardized testing.

Noori’s concerns are echoed by other researchers in the field of literature on authentic

assessment. A strong concern echoed in this body of literature is the issue of not just how we

assess students but how we teach students and what role we prepare them to assume once they

leave the educational system. If one of the reasons for using authentic assessment is that it

provides students with an opportunity to be tested using real-life tasks, then it follows that

education must indeed focus itself on preparing students for real life, that is the world of work.

“Assessment is not only about measuring what someone knows but their ability to use learned

skills […] The role of the teacher changes as authentic methods of instruction require teachers to

become facilitators rather than administrators of information. The methods of assessment must,

therefore, change to fit authentic tasks” (Bullens 2002).

 David Johnston (2002) insists that authentic assessments:

[…] develop stronger students. “Traditional tests often limits students.

Instructors who implemented authentic assessments in the classroom were
surprised by their student’s performances. Since authentic assessments
usually incorporate student choice, students select activities that engage
their interest. As a result, students often invest more in their projects and
accomplish more than they would have otherwise. Effective authentic
assessments brings many advantages to the classroom. Students perform
better, receive richer experiences, and demonstrate more significant
talents.
Dr. Hugh Baird (1997) of the Utah Office of Education states his concerns regarding

standardized testing and assessment in much stronger terms.

Objectively scored tests--multiple choice, completion,

short answer--emphasize the acquisition of and the mem-
orization of information. They cannot be appropriately
used to measure many higher level thinking abilities
nor can they be used to measure some other important
goals of schooling. To deal with this reality, educators
have begun to develop and use "more authentic" measures
of student learning--measures which do, in fact, assess
higher level thinking and other skills and abilities which
students will use throughout their lives.

In Dr. Baird’s opinion then, authentic assessment measures higher level thinking which

implies that students must be prepared to develop and use this skill. Therefore, education –

curriculum, teaching strategies and assessment techniques must shift in order to prepare students

for these types of skills, which as Dr. Baird suggests, they will use throughout their lives.

Indeed, one of the common threads in the literature on authentic assessment is that it has

more than the ability to see just what students know. Bergen (1993/4) suggests that

performance assessment demonstrates what students can do. “It is primarily based on the

behaviorist or learning theory definition of learning as a change in behavior.” If preparing

students for ‘the test’ was the teaching strategy for standardized testing then teaching for
authentic assessment would be almost its opposite. It would be about teaching students the skills

they will ultimately use and to demonstrate their ability to perform on a wide range of tasks.

Teaching and learning become a highly different endeavor. To prepare students for real

life tasks implies that students and teachers will likely engage in a far more interactive way than

ever before. “Effective assessment is linked directly to instruction. It is an essential part of

teaching, and every effort is made to assure that what is measured flows from what is taught […]

One of the most valuable outcomes of authentic assessment is the process of doing the work.

The environment of continual growth and improvement deepens knowledge as it increases

problem solving, active learning, good decision making and personal growth” (Robertson and

Valentine 2000).

Barbara Gentry (1998) a middle school teacher has found that using authentic assessment

not only benefits her students but it raises the level of her teaching. While she admits that

choosing authentic assessment tools is a challenging task, she feels strongly that the

responsibility and extra work it entails is worth it. “Excellent assessment practices lead directly

to excellent instruction. Begin with the end in mind; improve your assessment practices and

improve your teaching.” Like Robertson and Valentine (2000), Gentry believes that authentic

assessment and effective teaching go hand in hand. In fact, they are interdependent. The

literature strongly suggests that authentic assessment provides teachers with a new freedom in

their teaching that they previously had not experienced.

The research of Craig and McCormick (2002) appears to agree with the above

assumption. In fact, they go so far as to suggest that standardized testing is an impediment to

effective teaching and student achievement. “An important component to authentic assessment

is the ability to clarify the learning process […] Learning should not be a puzzle incapable of
solving or a perplexing brainteaser; but rather a construction project where students can build

banks of knowledge and form bridges to connect that knowledge to real life experiences and

situations.”

Authentic assessment does not simply embody a philosophy of teaching or assessing

students but a practical means of accomplishing both. Preparing students for authentic

assessment means teaching students in a variety of ways and in particular, encouraging their

creativity. “Assessment in the learner-centered classroom varies. Examples of types of

assessment are performance tasks, portfolios, student self-assessment surveys and probes , peer

assessments, journals, logs, products, and projects” (Robertson and Valentine, 2000, citing

Donald 1997).

One of the most interesting aspects of the literature on authentic assessment is the

descriptions of the unique projects and products that teachers can and do use in this unique

assessment and teaching technique. It provides for a wide range of creative activities in the

classroom and encourages students to develop and use a diversity of skills. For example, the use

of portfolios is a commonly used strategy for teachers in the use of authentic assessment. The

development of a student portfolio can represent a wide range of tasks they have completed, the

best of their assignments or even a selection of assignments the teacher chooses from the

student’s portfolio. In this way, the teacher can see a student’s progress over a long time span as

opposed to what the student may know or remember for a test on one particular day. The

portfolio enables the student to see their own progress as well and allows them to develop an

appreciation for what and how much they have learned. Carol Stuessy (1993) describes how the

use of portfolios in the teaching of integrated math and science has benefited her students.

Although products for each of the tasks were

suggested by the instructors, the student determined
the sequence and presentation of the products
in the final preparation of the portfolio.
Some of the products in the portfolio required students
to show evidence of analysis, synthesis, and reflection of
the teaching transfer experience. The portfolio therefore
provided a vehicle for students to reflect on their journey
through the solution of the teaching problem.