Whether it is using professional judgement to determine the selling price for a new product or establishing processes to integrate the changes to disclosure notes required following the adoption of IFRS S1, accountants work in complex environments and are responsible for developing nuanced entity specific responses to everyday problems and activities.
So how do we design assessments within accounting education which replicate an environment where students can develop these skills. Ensuring that students completing academic accountancy-based qualification (T levels, A levels or undergraduate degrees) are ready to thrive in the ever-changing environment in which accountants operate?
Lydia Arnold (2022) describes authentic assessment as assessments which are designed to equip students to work within uncertainty, mirror the real, complex challenges of work and result in nuanced outputs. These are the exact skills and attributes that we see reflected in the roles performed by members of the profession and are the skills and attributes we want our students to have when they start their professional careers.
The key to preparing students for the world of work is through embedding these types of assessments into our courses. Many, however, argue that there is no space in a curriculum which is already packed with technical content and requires students to sit closed book in person assessments. So how do we develop assessments to meet the needs of students, the profession and UK legislation?
There are a wide range of options and opportunities provided within the curricula of UK universities – the implementation of business decision-making simulations, employer panels for mock interviews, open book response-in-a-day client facing tasks and accounting clinics, to name but a few, all allow students to use their academic knowledge in a practical manner.
Providing students with assessment opportunities which focus on harnessing and integrating tools such as AI or providing wicked problems (Peters, 2017) allows them to practice, process and potentially fail in a safe but realistic space. The use of simulations, live briefs and consultancy projects allow students to establish a clear understanding of the need for professional judgement and scepticism in business decisions and prepares them for their future careers and roles in professional practice.
Designing assessments using a scaffolded approach and considering the eight critical elements of authentic assessment design (Ashford-Rowe et all, 2014) provides students a clear understanding of what is required to succeed both in the assessment and what to expect following completion of their course. It also provides an opportunity for educators to embed softer skills into the curriculum in a format which doesn’t feel like role play or “make-believe”, creating connections between theoretical content and practice-based experience. It gives academics the opportunity to embed meaningful work-related activities into the curriculum.
While the need for closed book in person exams is a discussion for another day, the need to ensure that assessment patterns are varied and prepare students for the reality of working in a dynamic and constantly changing environment is fundamental for the profession.
If you want to know how this has been put into practice in higher education courses at Manchester Metropolitan University, Warwick University and Aston University the on demand link for the webinar that occurred in May 2025 is here:
References
Arnold, L. 2022. Assessment top trumps. National Teaching Repository. DOI: 10.25416/NTR. 21716846.v1.
Ashford-Rowe, K., Herrington, J. and Brown, C., 2014. Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 39(2), pp. 205-222.
Peters, B.G. What is so wicked about wicked problems? A conceptual analysis and a research program, Policy and Society, Volume 36, Issue 3, September 2017, pages 385–396, https://doi.org/10.1080/14494035.2017.1361633.
