Authentic Assessment An Approach to Enhance and Assess Learning

This book discusses the process and findings of a study using authentic assessment as an approach to enhance and assess students' learning in a Lower Secondary Science Classroom in a context of Pakistan. Authentic assessment, according to Baron & Boschee (1995), is a process that involves students in real-word tasks which are worthwhile, significant and meaningful or in other words 'authentic'. In authentic assessment the students use knowledge, skills and attitudes in the same way as the professionals do in real-life tasks (Gulikers et al., 2004). Findings indicate that authentic assessment helps in enhancing students' learning such as conceptual understanding, planning, developing interview questions, interviewing people, preparing posters, giving presentation and responding to audience question. The study findings also reveal that in authentic assessment the student's role changed from a passive test taker to an active participant in the process of assessment while teacher's role changed as a facilitator.