Authentic assessment and feedback to develop life-long learning

This chapter will guide readers to develop assessment and feedback practices that will support geography undergraduate students to behave as reflective practitioners, developing skills for life-long learning. The chapter begins by outlining why approaches to assessment and feedback in higher education should be reconsidered. Key theories and concepts are introduced that will encourage readers to think of assessment as part of learning rather than a summative conclusion about performance. Concepts examined are authenticity, liminality, dialogue, learner responsibility, self-regulation and self-efficacy. Two case studies are presented to exemplify a social constructivist approach to assessment, where students find assessment meaningful and ‘real’. Authentic assessment positively enhances the learning experience, improves performance and develops employability skills, supporting the transition into professional life. The first case study shares formative and summative assessments that involve students contributing to contemporary debates about the geographies of citizenship. The second case study explores student perceptions of dialogic feedforward and charts the resulting impact on student behaviour, achievement and transferable skills. The chapter highlights the challenges inherent in such approaches and how they might be mitigated, and concludes with wider recommendations for practice