Using authentic assessment to enhance seafarer student engagement and their ability to transfer learning

<p>Past research shows that seafarer employers are critical of some of the assessment methods adopted by the educators at maritime education and training institutes (METs) to assess the competence of seafarers. The criticisms included the failure to develop and assess the holistic skills required to deploy competence in a range of contexts. Moreover, the decontextualized scenarios used in assessment methods disengage students from the learning process as they fail to recognize the significance of learning to the real-world. This paper argues that seafarer students can be engaged through authentic assessments conducted in real-world contexts that will test their ability to put theoretical knowledge developed in classrooms to practical settings resembling workplace scenarios. The arguments are based on the theories of constructivism and self-efficacy that underpin the concept of authentic assessment. The theories are used to explain greater student engagement through involvement in the process of knowledge construction that also develops metacognitive skills for the transfer of learning to different contexts. The theoretical arguments are supported with empirical evidence from past research to provide a robust justification for the use of authentic assessment in seafarer training to obtain similar outcomes.</p>