Navigating the dissonances of authenticity in assessment: Redefining the value and impact of authentic assessment in an era of generative crisis

Abstract

Higher education assessment is experiencing a renewed crisis, intensified by the successive shocks of the COVID‑19 pandemic and the rapid emergence of generative artificial intelligence. In response, universities have reverted to familiar, compliance‑oriented assessment practices (most notably high‑stakes, invigilated examinations) often at the expense of pedagogical expertise, (student agency, and trust. This working paper interrogates the contemporary positioning of authentic assessment and argues that its value has been simultaneously overextended as a panacea and underdeveloped as a rigorous framework for assessment for learning. Drawing on philosophical conceptions of authenticity, liminality, and trust, alongside critical scholarship on assessment, marketisation, and managerialism in higher education, the paper reframes authentic assessment as a relational, meaning‑making practice rather than a fixed set of task characteristics or employability proxies. It contends that assessment systems have become increasingly shaped by fear, scale, and auditability, fracturing their capacity to support learning amid uncertainty and transition, conditions that define both student experience and contemporary professional life.

The paper proposes a redefinition of authentic assessment grounded in three interrelated dimensions: epistemological authenticity, educational authenticity, and experiential authenticity. Together, these dimensions foreground learning through assessment, recognise students’ reflexive and ontological states, and situate assessment within the lived contexts of work, life, and play. The paper concludes that authentic assessment, when purposefully designed and enacted, offers a credible pathway for rebuilding trust between students, academics, institutions, and society in an era of generative crisis—without abandoning the legitimate demands of assurance, quality, and academic standards.