Verona Ní Drisceoil, Jo Wilson, Neal Geach and Sadie Whittam
This blog post is the first of a two-part piece capturing thoughts and reflections from anonline symposium on Authentic Assessment in Law: Critical and Practical Reflections.
Whilst the concept of authentic assessment is not a new one, it is fair to say that it has featured more prominently on higher education agendas in recent years. This prominence is due in part to a political push to ensure universities engage with an employability agenda, but it can also be seen as part of the response to the pandemic where it was necessary to move all assessments online. This pivot online forced an urgent rethinking of assessment and a space to adopt more innovative modes of assessment without the bureaucracy usually required to bring about assessment change. Many embraced that opportunity, adopting more innovative and ‘authentic’ modes of teaching and assessing. More recently still, developments in generative AI, particularly the launch of Chat GPT, has further ignited the assessment debate, with authentic assessment viewed by many as a potential response and approach to ‘deal’ with AI. It is yet to be seen whether that is, in fact, the case.
Notwithstanding this heightened focus, authentic assessment as a term, and concept, remains a deeply contested one. Its conceptualisation, to quote Ajjawi et al (2023:1), ‘has managed to escape substantial critique’.
Set against this backdrop, the online symposium ‘Authentic Assessment in Law: Critical and Practical Reflections’ (18 December 2023), hoped to provide an important and timely contribution to the discussion of authentic assessment in law. As the title of the symposiumsuggests, central to the aim was to invite a space for critical reflection and interrogation. In this regard, we deliberately invited insights from scholars encouraging deeper critical and theoretical explorations of the concept of authenticity. What do we mean by authenticity? Should we, to quote Lydia Arnold (2023), stop using the term ‘authentic’? Is it a distraction?Does it dissuade? Has authentic assessment, to quote McArthur (2023), simply become another ‘buzzword’ in higher education? The purpose of this first blog then is to capture some of the headline messages, questions and provocations that emerged from the first part of the day. Our brilliant speakers were Dr Jan McArthur, Dr Joanna Tai, Professor Lydia Arnold, and Dr Patrick Baughan. Thank you all for your rich, and thought provoking, contributions. We structure this blog around the following themes, as they emerged from the presentations.
1. Trust, honesty, and social justice
2. Inclusion and sustainability
3. Authentic Assessment and generative AI
Trust, honesty, and social justice
Dr Jan McArthur from the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University provided the keynote to the symposium on ‘Trust, honesty, and forgiveness: rethinking the foundations of authentic assessment in law.’ It was powerful, rich, and challenging in the best way possible. Keynotes should question and provoke, and, in that spirit, Jan began by asking us about trust in legal education. At what point, she asked, do we embed trust into our law curriculum. Where and when do our trustworthy lawyers come into being? That hit, as it should.
Jan then went on to explore three significant barriers to assessment including:
1. Embedded, and industrialised, distrust;
2. Faith in traditional exams; and
3. Irrational grading systems.
By embedded distrust, Jan was referring to ‘the conflation and hyper focus on poor referencing skills and plagiarism’ in higher education. This conflation, driven for monetary gain, she said, ‘has been disastrous for academic integrity, academic writing and authentic assessment’. We have lost focus on developing the academic craft of engaging with others and each other. On faith in traditional exams (especially now, as part of the AI debate), Jan challenged predominant narratives about in person exams being the best method to avoid academic misconduct. Jan reminded us that the literature tells us that students report far more cheating in exams than in online environments but in contrast, ‘staff assume more cheating in other assessments, compared with exams, and therefore go looking for it more’ and thus find more. Could in person open book assessments offer a compromise? (see further Ní Drisceoil 2024)
There is so much more we could share from Jan’s powerful keynote but given word constraints here, it is important to conclude by highlighting her key message. In designing our law assessments, we should, she said, be thinking about society, about social justice, andthe value of the task. Let us strip it right back. What are we assessing for? For Jan, our goal as educators should be about transforming society. In that regard, ‘Authenticity is not to join the world that exists – but to contribute to the world that could be.’
Inclusion and Sustainability
For Dr Joanna Tai, the key question was, and is, ‘authenticity for whom?’ What doesinclusion in authentic assessment look like? Assessment should, according to Tai et al (2023)‘recognise diversity in student learning and endeavour to ensure that no student is discriminated against by virtue of features other than their ability to meet appropriate standards.’ Joanna used handwriting in traditional exams as a powerful and provocative example of discrimination against students who cannot write clearly and quickly. She then commented on the synergies between inclusivity and authenticity, drawing on the work of McArthur (2023), and sharing valuable student perspectives which linked inclusivity to assessment practices that were realistic and applicable to their future careers, which they could connect to, and which they could demonstrate their own views on.
Joanna concluded with a series of rich insights into how authenticity in assessment design can support diversity. These included offering choice within tasks for students to develop and demonstrate their capabilities, supporting students to understand how tasks relate to future aspirations, involving peers in feedback, and aligning tasks to address the big issues in society, and thereby linking back to Jan’s keynote. For further insight into the benefits of adopting optionality as an assessment practice in law see Wilson (2023).
Alongside sustainability and partnership, inclusion also featured in Dr Patrick Baughan’s paper, as an alternative lens for assessment design. He defined authenticity as a student experience that is rich in learning, real-world based, current, and relevant, and which emphasises integrity and compassion. Additionally, he asserted that sustainability, partnership, and inclusion should also feature in our conception of authentic assessment.
Focusing on sustainability, Patrick argued that Higher Education needs to engage more deeply and urgently with both environmental and social sustainability issues. As such, headvocated that sustainability should be embedded into the curricula, teaching, assessment,and campus experience, so that students can graduate as ‘sustainable beings.’ For Patrick, a way to do this is through the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The SDGs undoubtedly provide a fantastic opportunity for engagement in authentic and current global issues that, without question, consider the role of law.
Authentic Assessment and AI
In her presentation, Professor Lydia Arnold offered thought provoking perspectives on ‘Authentic Assessment in an age of AI’. She asked whether it is time for us to stop using the phrase authentic assessment, and instead focus our attention on its component parts including, for example, collaboration, reflection, impact and simulation. This, she argued, could help with the unproductive binary conversations around the authentic v traditional assessment debate. Lydia also commented powerfully on the effectiveness of ‘nudging practice’, emphasising that authentic assessment exists on a continuum, rather than being a question of whether something is, or is not, authentic.
Drawing parallels from the pandemic, Lydia highlighted the significance of AI, especially generative AI, in terms of triggering change in the assessment landscape. Interestingly, her research suggests that AI use is being shaped by the conditions and design of assessment; if students focus on learning, AI is used as a tool to assist, whereas if students are focused on assessment AI is used as a tool to game the system. Lydia therefore argues that if we design our assessments well, including, for example by adopting authentic approaches, we willencourage students to focus on learning, and take away the drivers of poor practice.
On the importance of partnership, Lydia concluded that because the AI landscape is changing so quickly, we need to engage in meaningful and continual conversations with our studentson usage and developments. If you are engaging with these considerations at modular level, or more widely in your institution, we highly recommend engaging with Lydia’s brilliant resources available on her website: https://lydia-arnold.com/
Conclusion
We conclude with some of our key takeaways from the presentations:
1. On value: Ask yourself - What is the value of assessment? What do you value as a teacher? What skills do you want your students to achieve through assessment?
2. On inclusion: Build inclusion into your assessments from the start. One actionable way to achieve this is to provide optionality. Doing so, of course, will require you to consider equivalents.
3. On sustainability: Use the UN 17 SDGs to help shape and inform teaching and assessment.
4. Finally, on AI use, and the importance of partnership: Engage in meaningful and continual conversations with your students on AI usage and developments. This is essential, given the pace of change.
Presentations
Jan McArthur, ‘Trust, honesty, and forgiveness: rethinking the foundations of authentic assessment in law’
Joanna Tai, ‘Authentic to whom? Reconsidering authenticity in light of student diversity’
Lydia Arnold, ‘Authentic Assessment in an age of AI: Staff and Student Perspectives’
Patrick Baughan, ‘Alternative lenses for assessment design: sustainability, diversity and partnership’
References & Resources
Ajjawi R et al, ‘From Authentic Assessment to Authenticity in Assessment: Broadening Perspectives’ (2023) Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 1- 12 (Online).
Arnold, L, Website: https://lydia-arnold.com/
McArthur, J, Assessment for Social Justice: Perspectives and Practices Within Higher Education. (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 2018)
McArthur, J, ‘Rethinking authentic assessment: work, well-being, and society’ (2023) 85 (1) Higher Education 85.
Ní Drisceoil, V, ‘Assessment and Generative AI: What might we lose?’ ((University of Sussex Learning Matters Article, 24 April 2024)
Tai, J et al, ‘Assessment for inclusion: rethinking contemporary strategies in assessment design’ (2023) 42 Higher Education Research and Development 483.
Wilson, J, ‘“It equals the playing field”: Student reflections on introducing optionality as an accessible and inclusive assessment practice’ (University of Sussex Learning Matters Article, 3 Jan 2024).
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