The Future of Education

Assessment practices in higher education are undergoing significant changes due to the broader trend of digitisation and the challenges posed by students' access to AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT. At the same time, the challenges aim to ensure authenticity and higher order 'thinking skills' in assessment practices. This presentation is part of an ongoing study and its main aim is to contribute to knowledge about university teachers' experiences of opportunities and challenges in conducting assessment practices in the new media age. The aim is framed by theories of epistemic cultures and cultures of recognition (Knorr Cetina, 2007; Kress & Selander, 2012), which are used to explore the understanding of specific knowledge domains for assessment within courses and faculties. This part of the study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with eight different university teachers in three different faculties and three different professional programmes in higher education in Sweden. The results are reported at four levels: university level, faculty/programme level, course level and teacher/student level. The preliminary results indicate that teachers' choices in designing assessment tasks are influenced both by established assessment traditions - especially in digital assessment of subject knowledge - and a certain awareness of how different digital formats can represent the knowledge to be assessed. Teachers interviewed are sometimes constrained in their assessment design by shortcomings at university level, such as the number of places in common examination rooms, different rules and long lead times. At course level there are clear expressions of a common view of knowledge. At teacher level, there is an openness to try new forms of assessment and to vary the forms of assessment more, and that their own development is needed when it comes to AI.