Introduction

The term “authentic assessment” was first coined in 1989 by Grant Wiggins in K‒12 educational contexts. According to Wiggins (1989, p. 703), authentic assessment is “a true test” of intellectual achievement or ability because it requires students to demonstrate their deep understanding, higher-order thinking, and complex problem solving through the performance of exemplary tasks. Authentic tasks replicate real-world challenges and “standards of performance” that experts or professionals (e.g., mathematicians, scientists, writers, doctors, teachers, or designers) typically face in the field (Wiggins, 1989, p. 703). For instance, authentic tasks in mathematics need to elicit the kind of thinking and reasoning used by mathematicians when they solve problems.

In the assessment literature, some authors have argued that the term “authentic” was first introduced by Archbald and Newmann (1988) in the context of learning and assessment (Cumming & Maxwell, 1999; Palm, 2008). However, the term “authentic” in Archbald and Newmann (1988) was associated with achievement rather than assessment. A few years later, Newmann and Archbald (1992) provided a detailed explanation of authentic achievement. Cumming and Maxwell (1999) have aptly pointed out that authentic assessment and authentic achievement are interrelated, as it is important to identify the desired student learning outcomes and realign the methods of assessment to them. Authentic assessment should be rooted in authentic achievement to ensure a close alignment between assessment tasks and desired learning outcomes. This alignment is of paramount importance in the worldwide climate of curriculum and assessment reform, which places greater emphasis on the development of students’ 21st-century competencies—including critical and creative thinking, complex problem solving, effective communication, collaboration, self-directed and lifelong learning, responsible citizenship, and information technological literacy, just to name a few.

In addition to K‒12 education, “authentic assessment” was further defined by Gulikers, Bastiaens, and Kirschner (2004) in the context of professional and vocational training that incorporates competence-based curricula and assessments. To better prepare students for their future workplace, there is a need for assessment tasks used in professional and vocational education to resemble the tasks students will encounter in their future professional practice. Authentic assessments in competence-based education should create opportunities for students to integrate learning and working in practice, which results in students’ mastery of professional skills needed in their future workplace.

Authentic assessment has played a pivotal role in driving curricular and instructional changes in the context of global educational reforms. Since the 1990s, teacher education and professional development programs in many education systems around the globe have focused on the development of assessment literacy for teachers and teacher candidates which encompasses teacher competence in the design, adaptation, and use of authentic assessment tasks or performance assessment tasks to engage students in in-depth learning of subject matter and to promote their mastery of the 21st-century competencies (e.g., Darling-Hammond & Snyder, 2000; Koh, 2011a, 2011b, 2014; Shepard et al., 2005; Webb, 2009). Although many of the 21st-century competencies are not new, they have become increasingly in demand in colleges and workplaces that have shifted from lower-level cognitive and routine manual tasks to higher-level analytic and interactive tasks (e.g., collaborative problem solving) (Darling Hammond & Adamson, 2010). The amount of new information is increasing at an exponential rate due to the advancement of digital technology. Hence, rote learning and regurgitation of facts or procedures are no longer suitable in contemporary educational contexts. Rather, students are expected to be able to find, organize, interpret, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and apply new information or knowledge to solve non-routine problems.

Students’ mastery of the essential 21st-century competencies will enable them to succeed in colleges, to thrive in a fast-changing global economy, and to live meaningfully in a complex, technological connected world. According to Darling-Hammond and Adamson (2010), the role of performance assessment is critical in helping both teachers and students to achieve the 21st-century standards of assessment and learning. Many authors in extant research have used “performance assessment” and “authentic assessment” interchangeably (e.g., Arter, 1999; Darling-Hammond & Adamson, 2010). Some authors have distinguished between performance assessment and authentic assessment (Meyer, 1992; Palm, 2008; Wiggins, 1989). Thorough review of the literature suggests that there is a need to differentiate performance assessment from authentic assessment.

All authentic assessments are performance assessments because they require students to construct extended responses, to perform on something, or to produce a product. Both process and product matter to authentic assessments, and hence formative assessment—such as open questioning, descriptive feedback, self- and peer assessments—can be easily incorporated into authentic assessments. In other words, the process is as important as the product. As such, authentic assessments also capture students’ dispositions such as positive habits of mind, growth mindset, persistence in solving complex problems, resilience and grit, and self-directed learning. The use of scoring criteria and human judgments are two of the essential components of authentic assessments (Wiggins, 1989).

Although all performance assessments include constructed responses or performances on open-ended tasks, not all performance assessments are authentic. As Arter (1999) pointed out, the two essential components of a performance assessment include tasks and criteria. This suggests that the line between performance assessment and authentic assessment is thin. Hence, the authenticity of a performance assessment or performance-based tasks is best to be determined by Gulikers et al.’s (2004) five dimensions of authenticity; Koh and Luke’s (2009) criteria for authentic intellectual quality; Newmann, Marks, and Gamoran (1996) “intellectual quality” criteria; and Wiggins’s (1989) four key features of authentic assessment. The dimensional framework proposed by Gulikers et al. is appropriate for use with assessments in professional and vocational training contexts including higher education institutions, while Wiggins (1989), Newmann et al. (1996), and Koh and Luke (2009) are appropriate for use with assessments in K‒12 school contexts. The criteria for authentic intellectual quality by Koh and Luke (2009) have also been linked to the Singapore Classroom Coding Scheme, which was developed by Luke, Cazden, Lin, and Freebody (2005) to conduct classroom observations of teachers’ instructional practices. Some of the criteria for authentic intellectual quality were adapted from Newmann et al.’s (1996) authentic intellectual work, Lingard, Ladwig, Mills, Bahr, Chant, & Warry’s (2001) productive pedagogy and assessment, and the New South Wales model of quality teaching (Ladwig, 2009). Lingard et al. (2001) have used the term “rich tasks” instead of authentic tasks in the Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study. According to the authors, rich tasks are open-ended tasks that enable students to connect their learning to real-world issues and problems.

In short, this section presents a detailed explanation of the concept of authentic assessment. The remaining sections of this article will include a comparison of authentic assessment and conventional assessment, criteria for authenticity in authentic assessment, authentic assessment research in educational contexts (research problems/questions and methods included), and future research in authentic assessment.

Authentic Assessment Versus Conventional Assessment

Authentic assessment serves as an alternative to conventional assessment. Conventional assessment is limited to standardized paper-and-pencil/pen tests, which emphasize objective measurement. Standardized tests employ closed-ended item formats such as true‒false, matching, or multiple choice. The use of these item formats is believed to increase efficiency of test administration, objectivity of scoring, reliability of test scores, and cost-effectiveness as machine scoring and large-scale administration of test items are possible. However, it is widely recognized that traditional standardized testing restricts the assessment of higher-order thinking skills and other essential 21st-century competencies due to the nature of the item format. From an objective measurement or psychometric perspective, rigorous and higher-level learning outcomes(e.g., critical thinking, complex problem solving, collaboration, and extended communication) are too subjective to be tested. An overemphasis on objective measurement and closed-ended item formats has led to the testing of discrete bits of facts and procedures. As such, curriculum is fragmented and dumbed down as many of the desired learning outcomes are measured as atomized bits of knowledge and skills.

Standardized paper-and-pen tests are administered in uniform ways to ascertain student achievement for summative purposes (i.e., grading and reporting at the end of a unit or a semester, certification at the completion of a course). At the classroom level, standardized tests are typically used in summative assessment at the end of instruction. Assessment is seen to be detached from instruction. Large-scale administration of standardized paper-and-pen tests is often used for cross-national comparisons of student achievement. The use of standardized paper-and-pen tests on a large-scale basis is predominant in state/provincial assessments and international assessments. Examples of state/provincial assessments are the Foundation Skills Assessments (FSA) in British Columbia, Canada; the Provincial Achievement Tests (PAT) in Alberta, Canada; and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the United States. International assessments include the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS); the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS); and the Program in International Student Assessment (PISA). The closed-ended item response format in standardized tests tends to encourage students to fill in the bubbles or provide short answers using their rote memorization of discrete facts and procedures. Students are either rewarded or punished depending on whether they get that one answer right according to the answer keys or marking schemes. Such a testing format is aligned with the behaviorist learning theory that promotes the use of rewards to reinforce positive behaviors and of sanctions to remove negative behaviors.

Both summative and international assessments are high stakes because student achievement data derived from these assessments are used for making important decisions or policies, which may lead to unintended consequences for students, teachers, or school administrators. Oftentimes, teacher job performance is evaluated based on student performance on high-stakes assessments. In many high-performative education systems, teachers are held accountable by policy makers, parents, and school administrators for students’ performance. Such a high accountability demand has led to teachers’ tendency to teach to the content and format of state/provincial, national, or international assessments. For example, Koh and Luke’s (2009) large-scale empirical study of the quality of teachers’ assessment tasks in Singapore, one of the high-performative education systems in the world, has shown that worksheets and summative tests were two of the most commonly used assessment methods in the teaching of core subject areas such as English, mathematics, and science at both elementary and secondary levels. Teachers’ instructional practices were driven by preparing students for high-stakes examinations. As a result, the intended curriculum was reduced to a drill-and-practice of decontextualized factual and procedural knowledge.

Authentic assessments are characterized by open-ended tasks that require students to construct extended responses, to perform an act, or to produce a product in a real-world context—or a context that mimics the real world. Examples of authentic assessments include projects, portfolios, writing an article for newsletter or newspaper, performing a dance or drama, designing a digital artifact, creating a poster for science fair, debates, and oral presentations. According to Wiggins (1989), authentic tasks must “involve students in the actual challenges, standards, and habits needed for success in the academic disciplines or in the workplace” (p. 706). In other words, authentic tasks need to be designed to replicate the authentic intellectual challenges and standards facing experts or professionals in the field. Such assessment tasks are deemed able to engage and motivate learners when they perceive the relevance of the tasks to the real world or when they find that a completion of the tasks is meaningful for their learning.

The purpose of authentic assessment is to provide students with ample opportunity to engage in authentic tasks so as to develop, use, and extend their knowledge, higher-order thinking, and other 21st-century competencies. Authentic tasks are often performance-based and include complex and ill-structured problems that are well aligned with the rigorous and higher-order learning objectives in a reformed vision of curriculum (Shepard, 2000). Most professional challenges in the current and future workplace require individuals to strike a balance between individual and group achievement (Wiggins, 1989). The nature of authentic tasks enables students to learn how to achieve such a balance by engaging in independent learning of possible solutions and by collaborating with peers in a socially supportive learning environment over an extended period of time. As such, authentic tasks also support problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and other learner-centered pedagogical approaches. Productive discourse or extended communication in a social context is important in the process of arriving at solutions to problems. Hence students are able to “experience what it is like to do tasks in workplace and other real-life contexts” (Wiggins, 1998, p. 24). John Dewey, a prominent philosopher of education, underscored the importance of experience in education by arguing that learners cannot know something without directly experiencing it. Dewey inspired the use of the project method in his laboratory school at the University of Chicago from 1896 to 1904. The project method enabled children to reflect and examine critically at their prior beliefs or preexisting knowledge in the light of new experiences. Children were expected to learn content knowledge and procedural skills in a context that was relevant to their real-world lives. The context usually entails a complex, real-life problem or authentic project, with many levels of embedded problems and solutions. The project method was further defined as a “hearty purposeful act” by Kilpatrick (1918, p. 320) in his essay “The Project Method,” which became known worldwide.

Authentic tasks assess not only students’ authentic performance or work, but also their dispositions such as persistence in solving messy and complex problems, positive habits of mind, growth mindset, resilience and grit, and self-directed learning. Given that the use of scoring rubrics is a key component of authentic assessment, it enables the provision of descriptive feedback, self- and peer assessment using criteria and standards as in the form of holistic or analytic rubrics. It is important that students receive timely and formative feedback from the teacher and/or peers so that they are able to use the feedback to improve the quality of their performance or work. Such a formative assessment or assessment for learning practice has long been advocated in key assessment literature that urges teachers to use classroom assessment to support student learning or to promote a learner-centered classroom culture (e.g., Black & Wiliam, 1998; Shepard, 2000). From a social-constructivist learning approach (Shepard, 2000), the opportunities for productive discourse or dialogue in the process of collaborating with peers and of giving/receiving peer feedback in completing authentic tasks underscore the importance of co-construction of knowledge and meaning-making through socially supported interactions.

Since the 1990s, the social-constructivist learning theory has played a key role in the curriculum and assessment reform movement. The social-constructivist learning theory was named an emergent constructivist paradigm in Shepard’s (2000) reconceptualization of classroom assessment practice for the 21st century. The emergent constructivist paradigm was characterized by the shared principles of a reformed vision of curriculum, cognitive and constructivist/social-constructivist learning theories, and classroom assessment. The shared principles emphasize that all students can learn, and thus they must be given an equal opportunity to be exposed to intellectually challenging subject matter and assessment tasks that are aimed at developing their higher-order thinking, problem solving, and dispositions. The principles of classroom assessment in Shepard’s (2000) emergent constructivist paradigm are similar to those that characterize authentic assessment.

Criteria for Authenticity in Authentic Assessment

Research in Authentic Assessment

Future Research: The Remaining Questions

In the context of professional and vocational training, Gulikers, Bastiaens, Kirschner, and Kester (2008) have argued that the notion of authenticity is subjective and students’ perceptions of the authenticity of an assessment or a task can influence the quality of their learning. Their study has shown that there is a difference between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of assessment authenticity. As such, it is important to take into account students’ perceptions of meaningfulness or relevance of an assessment or a task to their real-life situations. Further, this finding also supports another crucial aspect of authentic assessment task design, that is, students must be involved in the process of determining and negotiating the assessment or task parameters (i.e., student control).

There has been a substantial body of research in teacher professional learning and development in classroom assessment or formative assessment. Many of them have focused on formative assessment or assessment for learning and models of effective professional development. Koh (2011b) has conducted a two-year intervention study with a group of elementary teachers in Singapore, to examine the effects of ongoing, sustained professional development in authentic assessment task design on the teachers’ assessment literacy, specifically teachers’ capacity in designing and implementing authentic assessment tasks. To enhance teachers’ understanding and internalization of the criteria for authentic intellectual quality in designing authentic tasks, only five of the key criteria were used in Koh’s (2011b) study: depth of knowledge, knowledge criticism, knowledge manipulation, sustained writing or extended communication, and connections to the real world beyond the classroom. The study has demonstrated positive results in improving teachers’ assessment literacy through ongoing, sustained professional development in authentic assessment task design in English, mathematics, and science at the elementary school level. In addition, in-depth interviews with the participating teachers have shown that their conceptions of authentic assessment have greatly improved toward the end of the two-year professional development. In a second study, Koh, Burke, Luke, Gong, and Tan (in press) found that Chinese language teachers had difficulty to incorporate certain knowledge manipulation criteria into their assessment tasks despite a quick grasp of the design principles of authentic assessment.

Webb (2009) has called for professional development in mathematics education to focus on “helping teachers to develop a ‘designers’ eye’ for selecting, adapting, and designing tasks to assess student understanding” (p. 3). Although the term “authentic assessment” was not directly used by Webb (2009), we can make inferences that authentic assessment is the most effective way of assessing student understanding across different subjects or disciplines.

Given that teachers need to have a “designers’ eye” (Webb, 2009, p. 3) or to be critical and intelligent consumers of high-quality authentic assessment or performance assessment, it is important for professional development and teacher education programs to provide both inservice and preservice teachers with ample opportunity to engage in authentic assessment task design and analysis of student work. For future research, the remaining questions should focus on building teachers’ capacity in authentic assessment and assessment for learning through a critical inquiry approach in school-based professional learning community or in teacher education programs. According to Wyatt-Smith and Gunn (2009), the critical inquiry approach refers to teachers’ ability to reflect on and understand the assessment processes and practices in actual sociocultural contexts in relation to four important lenses: (1) conceptions of the knowledge domains and competencies to be assessed; (2) conceptions of the alignment between assessment, teaching, and learning, and its enactment in practice; (3) teacher judgment practices in relation to standards, assessment task design, student work samples, and social moderation; and (4) curriculum literacies or discipline-specific language demands. To enable the power of authentic assessment to unfold in the classrooms of the early 21st century, it is essential that teachers are critical designers and reflective practitioners of classroom assessment tasks that support student learning and mastery of the 21st-century competencies.

Teachers’ capacity to design and implement authentic assessment is of paramount importance in the current era of competency-based education. In fact, authentic assessment has been used in International Baccalaureate programs and has also been incorporated into school-based assessments in several high-performing nations on PISA. The nations are Singapore, Hong Kong, Finland, and Australia. However, it is worth noting that the success of authentic assessment initiatives can be hindered by changes in school leadership or governmental policies. For example, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 in the United States and the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN, 2008) in Queensland, Australia have posed challenges to school-based, teacher-moderated assessment due to an overemphasis on “back to basics” and high-stakes accountability testing of students’ academic achievement.

In 2010, the launch of the Common Core Standards in the Unites States brought significant changes in curriculum, assessment, and instruction. The standards define the 21st-century knowledge, skills, and dispositions students should have mastered within their K‒12 education so that they are well prepared for achieving their academic and careers aspirations as well as personal well-being in an increasingly complex and competitive world. Ideally, the Common Core Standards have created opportunities for the development and implementation of authentic assessments or performance assessments in English language arts and mathematics. However, a heavy focus on the use of student assessment data for accountability purposes has led to a push back from state governments, teachers, and parents. A lack of teacher autonomy in the design and use of assessments to help students achieve the 21st-century educational outcomes has defeated the original purpose of the Common Core. Hence, it is important for policy makers in the US and other countries to model the Finnish education system, in which teachers are given full autonomy to develop and implement classroom assessments that support student learning.