The framework
Six dimensions of authentic assessment
Every evaluation reviews an assessment brief across six interdependent dimensions, published in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education and applicable to any discipline: clinical, studio, laboratory, humanities, quantitative, professional, and policy-oriented contexts alike.
What each dimension includes
Each dimension is scored on a four-point scale, from Absent to Strong, with evidence drawn from the brief itself. The summaries below describe what each dimension covers. The full set of evaluation criteria and scoring rules is proprietary to the tool and configurable per institution.
Contextual Fidelity and Consequential Relevance
Whether the task places students in a credible disciplinary, professional, civic, or research context, with a purpose and audience that give the work consequence beyond a grade.
This dimension covers
Realism and credibility of the scenario, the presence of a genuine audience or stakeholder, and how far the task integrates multiple outcomes the way real problems do.
Cognitive Demand and Evaluative Judgement
Whether the task calls for interpretation, synthesis, and defensible judgement rather than reproduction, and whether students must appraise quality, in their own work and others'.
This dimension covers
Higher-order thinking, application to unfamiliar situations, trade-offs and justification, and the development of evaluative judgement.
Process Transparency and Assessment Integrity
Whether the design makes development visible, so the final product can be interpreted as trustworthy evidence of the student's own learning.
This dimension covers
Visibility of reasoning and iteration, staged or milestone-based evidence, use of feedback, and safeguards that connect the submitted product to the learning behind it.
Student Agency and Bounded Choice
Whether students can meaningfully shape the work, topic, case, medium, or data, within a common architecture that keeps outcomes comparable and fair.
This dimension covers
Opportunities for ownership and personal relevance, the boundaries placed around choice, and how comparability is protected through shared standards and criteria.
Inclusivity and Representational Fairness
Whether expectations, resources, and routes to achievement are equitable for diverse learners, so the assessment measures the intended outcomes rather than prior access or background.
This dimension covers
Transparency of criteria, scaffolding and support, accessibility of the task and its materials, and whose contexts and practices the scenario represents.
AI-Aware Validity and Ethical Practice
Whether the role of generative AI is explicit, educationally aligned, and accountable, so the assessment still evidences the intended capability whatever the AI policy.
This dimension covers
Clarity of permitted and prohibited AI use, expectations for disclosure and verification, and how the design keeps human judgement and responsibility visible.
See the framework applied
Sign up for the demo to design a new assessment or evaluate a brief you already have against these dimensions.