AI-Supported Authentic Assessment in Science Education: Overcoming Logistical Barriers and Enhancing Outcomes
Keywords:
authentic assessment; generative AI; student engagement; academic achievement; instructional design; teacher-support toolsAbstract
As modern education shifts toward 21st-century skills, practical application often struggles to keep pace. To support the implementation of Authentic Assessment (AA), this study investigates its impact on grade 9 science students’ achievement and engagement in Palestine, relative to Traditional Assessment (TA), while exploring the role of generative AI as a teacher-support tool. Adopting an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design with a purposive sample of 59 female students, the study utilized quantitative testing (Mann-Whitney U) alongside qualitative thematic analysis (interviews, focus groups, and structured teacher reflections). To ensure rigor and replicability, a prompt engineering strategy was used alongside blind grading to reduce teacher bias. The results indicated that the AA group significantly outperformed the TA group in academic achievement (p = 0.007) while also displaying higher cognitive, behavioral, and emotional engagement. Qualitatively, the findings revealed that students learned concepts more deeply by creating tangible products to present to the class rather than through memorization. In addition, teacher reflections revealed that implementing AA posed significant logistical and time-related challenges, particularly in rubric construction and instructional planning. Importantly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) helped overcome these obstacles by simplifying the design of rubrics, clarifying performance criteria, and supporting lesson preparation. The study concludes that teacher-mediated, AI-supported AA offers a practical model for enhancing educational quality and student agency, proposing a scalable solution for settings with logistical constraints, although further studies are needed to extend these findings beyond this teacher- and gender-specific context.
https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.25.5.11
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