Assessing real-world learning experiences validly and reliably

In Higher Education, there is currently a trend towards applying assessment to real world learning experiences. These types of assessment tasks often take the form of projects which are closely aligned with situations students might find themselves in when they graduate. Introducing new assessment tasks raises the issue of how do we assess students progress both reliably and validly. In this paper we discuss the issues of real world learning and in particular real world assessment tasks. We discover that a “one-size-fits-all” approach in terms of developing and assessing these tasks is not possible. As such, we propose a continuum on which real world assessment tasks can be found and present some case studies to verify that assessment of these tasks is heavily dependent on the task and discipline being studied. Finally, we conclude with some thoughts on other issues with creating and assessing real world tasks.