Subjectivity and Agency in Initial Teacher Education: The Role of Authentic Assessment

Mellon, Conor and Emmett, Yvonne (2025) Subjectivity and Agency in Initial Teacher Education: The Role of Authentic Assessment. In: Innovations in Assessment, Student Experience and Professional Development in Higher Education: Contemporary Global Perspectives. Emerald, pp. 61-73. ISBN 978-1-83549-959-7

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Abstract

Conventionally, authentic assessment entails the design of assessment tasks that link knowledge with the everyday world of life and work, enabling learners to adopt a problem-oriented approach where real-world issues can be addressed in a considered and analytical fashion. In initial teacher education (ITE), authentic assessment can contribute to the development of student–teachers’ knowledge, skills and competence. However, at a deeper level, these tasks can remind student-teachers of their capacity for agency and for challenging the status quo. In evidencing authentic assessment’s role in this process, this chapter focuses on student-educators in a one-year postgraduate ITE programme in Ireland. Framed by Biesta’s domains of education and Dall’Alba’s ways of being, the work analysed a range of assessment submissions. The findings illuminate how student-teachers articulate and wrangle with their present and future selves, integrate ways of knowing, doing and being, and reconcile values and beliefs while accounting for institutional and wider contexts.

Item Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	Copyright © 2026 Conor Mellon and Yvonne Emmett Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	agency; Authentic assessment; further education; initial teacher education; student-educators; subjectivity
Subjects:	L Education > L Education (General) L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > Teaching Personnel L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education > Assessment L Education > LC Special aspects / Types of education > Vocational Education
Divisions:	School of Business and Social Sciences > Staff Research and Publications
Depositing User:	Tamara Malone
Date Deposited:	19 Feb 2026 12:53
Last Modified:	19 Feb 2026 12:53
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/9152

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