Introduction

Assessment is an essential part of formal education system and it is

implemented to evaluate and assess the academic performances of the
learners. This help to indicates how an individual is doing in reaching a goal
along with what was not accomplished towards it. In order to develop a
positive learning environment it is necessary to have effective assessment
system to cater for students with different learning styles and ability.
Authentic assessment is one of the most important and useful assessment
used by the teachers to make the students more responsible about their
learning and to give them choice to show their best performance (Hariss,
Krause, Gleeson, Peat, Taylor, & Garnett, 2009).
The word authentic means something which is true or real in Cambridge
advanced

learners

meaning.

Georgakis,

(2015)

defines

authentic

assessment as an assessment which is based on multiple assessment tasks

to represent real life activities in learning and assessing. Authentic
assessment helps to evaluate intellectual tasks of the students that cannot
be evaluated by the written test. It also encourages students to craft
justifiable answers leading to rehearse complex ambiguity (Wiggins, Grant
1990).
Literature review
According to Palm, T. (2008) authentic assessment as a cognitive task which
constructs knowledge in order to get beyond the existing knowledge, create

correlation between this knowledge to construct deeper understanding of a

topic, conduct their work and come to a conclusion through elaborative
communication. According to Gulikers et al. (2004), teacher should present
the authentic task in a new situation which helps to transfer knowledge to
what students learn. Therefore, in order to develop an authentic assessment
teacher must think about how the knowledge, skills and attitudes learned in
class relate to context beyond the classroom. He also provided details on
developing tasks in physical contexts, in social contexts, and in relation to
how learners understand the task and its assessment results and criteria and
standards.

Authentic task is a challenging activity that experiments students with

activities that are carried out in a real life situation or in a professional way
which helps to incorporate knowledge, skills and attitudes. GULIKER. Most
authentic tasks are complex, which involves multiple tasks with various
solutions. In addition, physical context of an authentic assessment reflects
the way knowledge, skills and attitudes use in the professional context or a
simulations use to imitate real situation. Furthermore, social process is about
the social context of authentic assessment which includes collaboration with
each other or individual accountability. Assessment result or form is the
fourth dimension of authentic assessment. It is related to the outcome of the
assessment task which checks the quality product or performance, valid

inferences about the fundamental competencies, numerous pointers of

learning conclusions, present their work to other people, either orally or in
written form.

Criteria and standards

Standards are the goals to be achieved or the tasks students are able to do.
They should be observable and measurable.

Knowledge, skills and attitude are important components of authentic

assessment. (Van Merrinboer, 1997). Cited in Gulikers

Providing ownership and chances of solving problem helps the students to

actively engage in authentic learning (Savery and Duffy 1995) cited in
Gulikers

Examination system of almost all the schools involves memory work,

whereas out-of-school activities are very much depend on tools and
resources. (hands on work rather than by-hearting) Resnick (1987) cited in
Gulikers. Professionals rely on resources.

This assignment focus on an authentic assessment Economics teachers can

conducts in schools during teaching business organization.
Design of authentic Assessment in business organization
Aim of this project is to explore information about different types of
businesses operate in the country and identifies the features of such
businesses by actively engage with them. In addition, this helps them to
grasp, manipulate and participate physically in the real environment to
reflect what they have learnt in the classroom. Furthermore, this promotes
social interactions between students which foster team work among students
and give the students a feeling of new experiences.

Task
You are a consultant from the economics ministry to assess the activities and
the process, features of a particular business, amount of profits and the
policies used to increase the capital as well as profits of the company.
Procedure
1. Teacher will group the students randomly and assign them to evaluate
three different types of businesses. VB brothers (partnership business),
Bank of Maldives Plc (Public limited company), and STELCO (public
corporation).
2. Identify whether the business has democratic or autocratic style of
management.

3. Gather

different

information

related

to

the

business

through

questionnaire prepared by the students. Which must include information

like:
Brief history of the business
Main aim of the business
Number of employees working (including ownership)
How do they recruit candidates for different posts
Amount of capital invested to start the business and the current capital
of the business.
Have shareholders or not.
Assets and liabilities of the business

4. Draw a concept map to illustrate the organizational structure of the
business.
5. Using the information gathered prepare power point presentation for 20
minutes based on:
How you gathered information.
Objectives of the business with different techniques used by the

business to achieve their objectives.

Feature of the business including all the related information gathered to

evaluate the business.

Discuss the economic effects of a particular business.
Present power point presentation (20 minutes) by engaging all the

participants of the group.

6. Finally you have to prepare individual report. This includes a brief
introduction about the type of business you visited, methods you used to
gather information, a brief analysis and discussion of the results and
findings, a conclusion from your findings and any further improvement
you can bring to the activity.

Criteria for individual report

Title page with necessary information

Clear, adequate introduction to the topic with the purpose
Clear and concise explanation of the method used to collect data
Data analysis and appropriate discussion
Limitations and further improvement
A clear appropriate conclusion
Written in suitable language and free from spelling and grammar

mistakes
Appropriate layout attractive

These criteria can be assessed by combining that in a rubric that should be

given to the students. The following rubric is a sample of rubric that
can be used for this task

Factors that constrain the implementation of this task in my

school and how to overcome them
This task is designed for grade 10 students of Thaajuddeen School. This is a
single session school run under the government work toward holistic
education to every child. However, the school curriculum, extracurricular
activities, and other issues there are some difficulties in conducting this type
of assessment in the. In addition, time is another constrains of this task as it
is difficult to have effective task like a field trip within few hours. It needs at
least one day or more to provide the students enough time to perform the
tasks and to come up with the results of their performance and evaluate
their performance by them-selves.

Teachers also need time to plan, get permission from school and the visiting
place to make sure everything run smoothly as plan.
The required time may not be obtainable due to extracurricular activities
which are also given as much important as the content knowledge.
Furthermore, it is difficult to have filed trips and other authentic tasks design
to conduct outside the school due to budgetary constraints. In addition, as
these trips include a large group of students, many teachers or other people
are needed to manage the students, monitor and guide them to increase
their engagement in the tasks.
Getting permission from different businesses might be challenging as they
might not have enough time and space to accommodate students to assess
their work.
The mentioned constraints can be overcome by designing the curriculum
including time for this authentic assessments and, by getting help from the
parents and sponsors form different organizations and individual bodies
financial problems can be solve. In addition, long term planning with the help
of school management, parents and teachers of other subject areas can help
to spot out the possible constraints in implementing that and help to
overcome the constraints. Parents help can be used to make the task less
labor intensive, to bargain better safety measures, and to get fund for
different expenses of the assessment.

Modifications to retain authenticity

Even though some of the constraints can be minimized to some extent by

using the strategies mentioned, the schools and teachers cannot shoot out
all the difficulties completely. If the school cannot conduct field trips as an
authentic assessment, the task can be modified in several ways. The task
mentioned can be modified as a group presentation in which the students
can research, find the relevant information from different sources such as
internet and media and present their findings to the class or to any other
audience

(Guidelines

for

oral

presentations,

2001).

To

conduct

this

assessment as a group presentation, the following standards can be used.

Task
You are conservation biologists from Environmental protection Agency who
wants to collect some information about the sampling techniques you can
use to calculate the population density and determine population distribution
in K. Hura, before visiting to that island. By using collected information from
different sources, you are going to prepare a group presentation to make
your colleagues more aware of the sampling techniques and explain them
how these strategies can be practiced in different sites and what are the advantages and
disadvantages of these strategies.

Reference

Gulikers, J., Bastiaens, T., & Kirschner, P. (2006). Authentic assessment, student and teacher
perceptions: the practical value of the fivedimensional framework. Journal of Vocational Education and
Training, 58(3), 337-357.

Palm, T. (2008). Performance assessment and authentic assessment: A conceptual analysis of the
literature. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 13(4), 1-11.

Authentic Assessment in Physical Education: A Case Study of Game Sense Pedagogy

Steve Georgakis, (2015) Rachel Wilson, John Evans
The Physical Educator Vol. 72 pp. 6786 2015

Harris, K. L., Krause, K., Gleeson, D., Peat, M., Taylor, C., & Garnett, R. (2007). Enhancing assessment
in the biological sciences: ideas and resources for university educators. Tersedia: www. bioassess. edu.
au.[8 Maret 2008].

Wiggins, G. (1990). The Case for Authentic Assessment. ERIC Digest.

(Ibid)