Put the thinker first: A manifesto for modern, and human, assessment validity.

As someone whose academic roots are in sociology and anthropology, I tend to look at higher education through the lens of human systems and cultural behaviour.

And right now, the system looks broken.

So let's begin with the end in mind:

Our responsibility is to create and protect strong teaching and learning, and our deepest commitment must be to the critical thinking that serves students long after graduation.

Students become critical thinkers in the moments between milestones, through the ongoing work of learning.

But right now, that journey is under strain.

We have allowed a technological arms race to push us away from pedagogy-first integrity and toward reactive tech adoption. In doing so, we have also created an academic panopticon, keeping students under constant scrutiny while asking exhausted educators to act as frontline forensic enforcers.

When we frame education as police-versus-criminal, behaviour follows.

To restore the learning journey, we have to stop looking at assignments as static digital files to be policed, and start looking at them the way an anthropologist looks at culture: as a living, continuous process of human creation.

How?

Assessment validity needs to be re-centered on teaching and learning by validating the process, not just a static digital file that may or may not reflect genuine learning. And to restore the learning journey, we must stop asking educators to become forensic investigators or assessment designers overnight.

That is why I believe Studiosity is doing something important.

I have served as Studiosity’s Chief Academic Officer for nearly a decade. Coming from within the sector, what stood out to me was the organisation’s clear purpose: a focus on institutional partnerships and an evidence-based approach delivered in two parts.

• • Growing students’ critical thinking: Enabling universal formative feedback, so it is genuinely equitable, and treating critical thinking as a graduate capability that develops within and between assessments.

  • Helping educators validate authorship: Supporting students to self-validate authentic effort and ownership within existing LMS workflows, without burdening educators any further.

Validity as something built over time.

Think of assessment validity as an empty jar.

As students reach genuine milestones throughout the assignment process, they fill that jar with evidence of human thinking.

Some pieces of evidence are major, others minor; some matter more to the educator than others.

And different tasks require different thresholds - the line to which students need to fill up.

The educator remains in control by setting the validation threshold for the task.

This process applies to every student. At the end, the educator sees not a percentage score but a clear “valid” indicator at submission.

This removes the need for mandatory policework afterward. Nor is there any need to interpret percentage-based scores, because the educator has already defined what valid work means for that task.

What assessment validity will look like

True assessment focuses on the student, not just the submitted paper.

In the jar analogy above, different assignments will have different validity profiles. Those different profiles can all be valid: a low threshold isn't 'worse' than a high threshold, it's just a different assignment (or time of year, or the stakes are different.) The quality and quantity of self-validation required by the student will reflect that task’s purpose and design.

So with Studiosity, educators achieve this by choosing different ingredients in their usual assignment flow.

For instance, educators can choose a. the level of AI use to be considered in the assessment validation flow, and b. the level of validity that suits that assignment, given time of semester, high or low stakes, Lane, or other design factors.

...For students, the journey is staged and familiar.

Over the course of their degree, students build a unique writing profile in Studiosity that can be used at submission; getting feedback that develops critical thinking and communication skills.

At the usual point of submission, students respond to dynamic viva-style and cloze questions for authorship validation, tailored to their individual learning journey.

The human context of learning

As I described to you above - I began my academic career in anthropology and sociology, disciplines grounded in observing human behaviour and understanding the cultural context.

Anthropology taught me that you cannot understand human intent or capability by examining an isolated artefact in a vacuum. You must look at the living, continuous process of creation, the engagement with individuals and groups, and asking what is happening here.

For years, higher education has tried to verify academic integrity by scrutinising an isolated digital file, separated from the student who produced it. This is a legacy mindset born with the rise of the digital document, a reflex from the days when students physically submitted paper essays. In the process, misconduct, which is only one small part of educational integrity, has come to dominate the whole conversation.

By building validation into existing assignment workflows, we can move away from surveillance and back toward the human core of education.

Universities that adopt this approach will show students, regulators, and industry that they stand behind genuine learning.

I encourage college and university leaders to explore learning-focused assessment with Studiosity.

Because learning is the point.

About:

Professor Judyth Sachs is Chief Academic Officer at Studiosity, where she leads global academic strategy and ethical student success. A highly experienced higher education leader, she has served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost at Macquarie University, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Learning and Teaching at the University of Sydney, and Interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic at the University of Canberra, alongside teaching and university advisory roles in Europe. Across these roles, she has been a strong advocate for systemic transformation in teaching and learning.