Authentic and industry-relevant assessments challenge students to undertake complex higher-order reasoning and to think independently and creatively. External stakeholders, such as industry groups and professional bodies, favour universities offering work-relevant experiences. Authentic assessment enhances graduate employability by developing students’ “work-readiness” capabilities and addresses calls for “sustainable assessment”. For many Finance and Accounting units taught at ACU, the major assessments are either a final exam with problem sets sourced from the textbook instructor resources or an assignment testing knowledge of Finance/Accounting theory instead of real-life applications. This makes the final assessment vulnerable to academic integrity breaches and results in a certain degree of disconnect from industry practice. Finance and Accounting being highly applied disciplines require more appropriate industry-relevant assessments where students could apply the skills developed in the unit into a practical application. To ensure that academic integrity standards are met and engage students in active learning, I am working on the development of an authentic assessment for BAFN204 – Portfolio Management: Investing Wisely. This is going to be the Case Study Exam.

An important aspect of my evaluation practice is industry relevance. Learning through authentic assessments and active learning have emerged as complementary practices to work placements and in response to worldwide pressures to improve graduate employability. It is argued that besides providing the foundation for high academic standards and best practices, authentic assessments and academic integrity enrich students with skills that advance their employability. Therefore, I contribute my Finance industry experience and investment professionals’ expertise to enhance assessment and feedback. The main question is ‘Which assessment method best measures what students should be able to do as a result of instruction?’ The answer to this question guides my choice of assessment methods. For example, since one of the most important learning outcomes of BAFN204 – Portfolio Management: Investing Wisely is to develop students’ ability to perform security selection and make corresponding investment decisions, together with my Finance discipline colleagues and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) professionals we decided that a Case Study Exam format was the best way to measure that outcome. The assumption behind this is that instruction reflects the desired learning outcome. Thus, the assessment task matches both instruction and the stated behaviour in the learning objective.

The Case Study Exam for BAFN204 – Portfolio Management: Investing Wisely is being developed and adapted to the relevant context in consultation with academic colleagues in Finance as well as industry professionals. On Friday, 15 November 2024, I presented the idea, format, structure, purpose, and outline of the exam at FinEd Forum 2024 at Southern Cross Catholic College in Sydney, NSW. The FinEd Forum was organised by Ecstra Foundation. The purpose of the presentation was to solicit feedback and suggestions from educators and government officials.

My goal is to provide learning opportunities to people who wish to gain expertise in investment and portfolio management. I expect that using a learner-centered pedagogy will assist students in acquiring technical know-how, but more importantly, challenge them to be reflective thinkers who find adaptive solutions for investment portfolios.

Jak.Kakhkharov