Authentic Assessment and Pedagogical Strategies in Higher Education

Problem statement: Researchers have noted that there is a mismatch between curriculum content and assessment practices in higher education. At the moment, the focus is still on the assessment of learning and not much on assessment for learning. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the implementation of authentic assessment in higher education in Malaysia. Approach: The study employed a qualitative research method and involved the use of instruments such as interviews, document analysis and unobtrusive classroom observations to collect the relevant data in the classrooms of a three-credit hour course from a Masters degree programme. The total population consisted of 2 lecturers and 20 students from the two selected intact TSL 752 classes. Results: In this study, researchers identified different types of authentic assessment with the suitability to certain pedagogical strategies, their effects on students' learning and the appropriate procedures of conducting authentic assessments. The findings indicated that alternative and authentic assessment have more acceptance from students and should therefore be viewed as an alternative to traditional standardized assessment. Conclusion/Recommendations: The study identified that assessment strategies should be closely related to teaching and learning. Assessing authentic performances should become integral parts of the instructional cycle and feedback provided by the lecturer and peers should be formative in order to help the students assess their strengths and weaknesses, identifying areas of needed growth and mobilizing current capacity.