Assessing authentically – learnings from marketing educators

ABSTRACT

This paper demonstrates the importance and role of authentic assessments, that replicate industry practice, within Higher Education marketing programmes. We answer the call from employers, that students need to gain much-needed employability skills, and we illustrate how such assessments can be created to enable the development of employability skills. We provide an overview of four case studies, to illustrate different forms of authentic assessments, the theory which was used to underpin the designs, the skills developed during the assessments, and the outcomes of the assessments. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced a move to online assessments, it is timely that we reflect on the value of authentic assessments and adjust our practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Authentic assessments
• employability skills
• marketing
• digital literacy
• case study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

S. Montano

Sarah Montano PhD, BA (Hons), SFHEA. Sarah is an experienced Academic with a demonstrated 20-year history of working in the higher education industry and programme management. Sarah is currently Deputy Director of Education (Digital) for the College of Social Science where she leads in the use of digital education resources and the development of distance learning programmes. She has held several leadership positions including Programme Director Business Management and School Director of Transnational Education and Senior Lecturer in Marketing. Prior to working in academia, she worked in retail at a senior management level. Sarah holds the award of Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, for her performance in teaching, design, and leadership and her work on digital learning has been used to demonstrate the digital excellence internationally. Her research interests are primarily around how industry practice can be reflected in assessments, digital education, and graduate employability skill development. She is an engaging and skilled communicator and regularly appears in the media on the subject of retail industry change.

L. Gill-Simmen

Lucy Gill-Simmen is Vice Dean of Education and Student Experience and Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Royal Holloway, University of London. She holds both an MBA and a Ph.D. in Marketing from Imperial College Business School, London. Her areas of expertise are in marketing strategy (in theory and in practice), global marketing strategy, consumer brand relationships and internal branding. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has a passion for education and teaching and learning and is particularly interested in engagement in innovative teaching methods to facilitate employability skills. For example, she has drawn on the arts to help students to develop some of the key soft skills they need to enter the workplace. She is also interested in transformative education and is involved in research projects examining how by providing a transformative education experience students are equipped to thrive in the rapidly changing world. In 2022, she won a Global Women in Marketing Award for her role as an educator in enhancing and transforming student experience and outcomes through the development of learning activities and resources creating effective learning environments with equality of opportunity for all learners. Prior to entering academia, Lucy worked for a number of years in marketing and managerial roles in the publishing and communications industry both in Europe and in the USA.

D. Lee

Daisy Lee is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader of Marketing and Digital Strategy at the School of Professional Education and Executive Development, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. Her research interests include digital marketing, strategic communications, and social marketing for behaviour change. Her publications appear in peer-reviewed journals and top-tier conference proceedings including the International Journal of Educational Management, Journal of Marketing Management, and Online Information Review. Daisy is a veteran of marketing. She has extensive commercial experience across digital marketing, consumer marketing, shopper marketing, and marketing research gained from multinational giants she worked with. Prior to academia, she worked as Regional Director at Philips Asia Pacific marketing team, overseeing 15 APAC countries. She also serves the community through voluntary digital marketing consultancy for non-profit organisations and professional bodies.

L. Walsh

Lucia Walsh is a researcher, lecturer & programme chair for PgCert in Sustainability Leadership in TU Dublin’s School of Marketing & Entrepreneurship. Her current research interests include social entrepreneurship, business sustainability literacy & leadership, authentic assessment, and education for sustainability. Lucia’s research work has been published in ABS-ranked international journals and at numerous national and international conferences. She has been a recipient of research and teaching innovation awards and was one of the founding members of SDG Literacy Community of Practice. Lucia is actively engaged in the university cross-disciplinary initiatives and contributes to making the world a better place by empowering one student at a time.

D. Duffy

Dee Duffy is a lecturer and Programme Chair in the School of Retail and Services Management, Technological University Dublin. She delivers modules on professional development, marketing management, sociology of fashion, and retail consumption & society. Her research interests include sustainability literacy in higher education, developing interpersonal skills to enhance graduate employability and citizen awareness, and exploring the relationship between fashion, sustainability, and the consumer. She sat as a panel expert for an international project introducing sustainable business practices into the textile engineering curriculum for future managers in the Bangladesh textile industry. Dee serves on the Editorial Advisory Panel for the Irish Journal of Academic Practice (IJAP). She contributed to her university’s application to become a PRME (Principles of Responsible Management Education) participant. She is a member of the SDG Literacy Community of Practice group at TU Dublin, co-creating learning opportunities of the UN Sustainable Development Goals across the university. She has presented research at the Academy of Marketing Conference, Consumer Culture Theory Conference, Gender Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Conference, American Marketing Association Marketing Educators’ Conference, European Conference of the Association for Consumer Research, AdvanceHE Sustainability Symposium, and the Irish Academy of Management Conference.

N. Newman

Nicki Newman PhD, MBA, MEd, PG Cert, BSc. Nicki Newman is a Professor in Marketing Education and Director of Education at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK. She teaches on integrated marketing communications and the principle of marketing. Her research interests include how educational technologies can improve both the student and staff experience of higher education, how to incorporate responsible business into marketing education, and the development of employability skills within the curriculum. She is a member of the Academy of Marketing’s Education Committee and has hosted multiple workshops at their annual conference. She is a special issue editor and reviewer for the Journal of Marketing Management and a reviewer for the Open Scholarship of Teaching & Learning Journal. She has presented papers at the Academy of Marketing Conference, Society for Research into Higher Education Conference, EduLearn Conference, and the Chartered Association of Business Schools Learning & Teaching Conference.