The Quest for More Caring and Humanity in Digital Assessment

During the COVID pandemic, it became clear that understanding assessment in terms of cognitive processes has plenty of limitations. The emerging artificial intelligence technologies (e.g., ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity) made it even more apparent, bringing more ethical dilemmas and showing more weaknesses in the higher educational systems. Online education is a new reality, and academic staff should rethink how they approach teaching, assessment, and learning in the digital environment. We can no longer respond to new educational challenges with the same traditional approaches and mindsets. In post-pandemic higher education, besides focusing on ethical dilemmas and cognitive processes, it would be worth reflecting on the impact of personal and social implications of what learners are learning, their feelings, interests, and values, and ways to empower students to become more self-directed learners. Based on Fink’s taxonomy of significant learning, this chapter will provide an integrative framework of digital assessment techniques to stimulate student motivation and academic performance. Our conceptual work will bring empirical evidence to facilitate the successful implementation and integration of digital assessment in higher education, emphasizing the human dimension of higher education.