Using a 'Students as Partners' model to develop an authentic assessment promoting employability skills in undergraduate life science education.

Abstract

Authentic assessments (AA) include three principles, realism, cognitive challenge, and evaluative judgment, and replicate professional workplace expectations. Developing AA in undergraduate life science education is necessary to promote critical skill development and adequately prepare students for the workplace. Using a 'Students-as-Partners' (SAP) approach, five students, an educational developer and the instructor codeveloped an AA requiring students to utilize scientific literacy (SL) and critical thinking (CT) skills to develop a data extraction table and generate communication outputs for scientific and nonscientific audiences. Subsequently, the SAP-developed AA was completed by students (n = 173) enrolled in a fourth-year life sciences and pathophysiology course who completed an online survey providing feedback about their perceived development of critical skills and the relevance of the assignment to the workplace. The top transferable skills students reported the greatest growth in were SL (41.6%, n = 72), communication (34.7%, n = 60), CT (16.2%, n = 28), and problem-solving (7.5%, n = 13). Student self-assessed and instructor-assessed grades were positively correlated, wherein 60.6% of students assessed their AA grades below the instructor's assessment and 4.7% of students assigned themselves the same grade as the instructor. Students' perceived stress levels were (a) negatively correlated with assignment grades and feelings of enjoyment, hope and pride, and (b) positively correlated with feelings of anger, anxiety, shame, and hopelessness while working on the assignment. This study demonstrates the impact of AA on the student learning experience and the relevance of AA to help prepare students for life science careers.