Learning through Authentic Assessment Tasks: Perception of Early Childhood Education Undergraduates

Abstract

Authentic assessment offers students opportunities to learn through the process of assessment itself (Brown, 2015). One of the key principles for the design of this type of assessment is developing authentic assessment tasks that represent both content and the core skills (Vallejo y Molina, 2014). This study follows a questionnaire-based survey design with the goal of finding out university students' perception of the assessment process conducted in the subject Systematic Observation and Context Analysis, based on the proposals of Boud (2010). The sample consists of 131 students, belonging to the three first-year groups on the Degree in Early Childhood Education (University of Cádiz). The results show a high level of satisfaction among the students with the assessment conducted. They perceive that the assessment task allowed them to increase motivation and understand systematic observation as a necessary technique for reflection on educational practice, as well as being realistic and challenging, which has facilitated more useful and meaningful learning. Learning through a real experience is the main positive aspect, with the lack of time highlighted as the main drawback. The design and implementation of these types of assessment break away from the predominant assessment system at universities, more aimed at the verification and evaluation of learning than at its improvement (Lukas, Santiago, Lizasoain y Etxeberria, 2017).