Utilising student reflections to inform authentic assessment design

The adoption of authentic assessment in higher education has grown substantially over the past decade, reflecting efforts by universities to enhance student engagement and address the employability demands of industry. Authentic assessment has more recently been heralded as a potential solution to deal with the growing pressure on universities to meet academic integrity requirements, however, this suggestion is yet to be empirically explored. Moreover, authentic assessment’s ability to improve student engagement, employability skills and academic integrity is contingent on students’ perspectives and experiences with authentic assessment, yet an empirical analysis of student perspectives remains absent in the literature. This paper presents findings from a thematic analysis of final year undergraduate business student perspectives <i>(N</i> = 128) centred around their experiences with an authentic assessment framework and implementation plan developed by Lehane et al. [2024. “Improving Academic Integrity through Authentic Assessment Design.” <i>Irish Educational Studies</i>: 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/03323315.2024.2441164]. The key contribution of this new study is that authentic assessment can improve academic integrity while simultaneously enhancing student engagement and employability skills. Practical implications and recommendations for educators are discussed to increase the uptake and successful implementation of authentic assessment.