In this podcast, we share Professor Phillip Dawson's keynote address on Assessment Design for a time of AI, which he presented at our 2025 Quality Insights Conference last month.

Phillip is co-director of Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University, Australia. Having initially studied AI and cyber security before his PhD in Higher Education, he’s now a leading expert on assessment validity in the digital age.

Artificial intelligence is capable of producing outputs that satisfy the requirements of some high-stakes assessments across a range of disciplines including law, medicine and engineering. This has driven concerns about a new wave of artificial-intelligence-enabled cheating, as well as questions about the sustainability and authenticity of current assessment practices.

This presentation explores how assessment needs to change for a time of artificial intelligence. It draws upon work the Phillip has done as one of the leaders of the major Australian project Assessment reform for a time of artificial intelligence, which was funded by the Australian higher education regulator. The presentation’s main focus is resolving the tension between preparing students for a world pervaded by artificial intelligence, and ensuring the integrity and security of assessment.

Key points covered are:

1. Assessment matters, but so does what is assessed (does it need to change in a time of AI?)
2. Validity matters more than cheating (is AI panic more of a threat to validity than AI itself?)
3. Future-authentic assessment (prepare for their future, not our past)
4. Reverse scaffolding (use AI once you can do it yourself)
5. Zone of Proximal Development (tools for production vs tools for learning)
6. Cognitive offloading (extraneous vs intrinsic)
7. Evaluative judgement (but it can’t be the only thing)
8. Make structural not discursive changes (no bogus rules)
9. No such thing as AI-proof assessment (beware of anybody who says they have one
10. Swiss Cheese programmatic - layers of imperfect assessments tell us more than one good one

If you would like to view Phillip's slides, go to the video version of this podcast: https://youtu.be/8ANOlnypHFw

Don’t forget, if you’re a QAA Member, you can book your place now for our in-person Member Network Conference on 2 April and access a range of thought-provoking and topical presentations and discussions from across the sector just like this one. Click the link to find out more: https://events.qaa.ac.uk/event/abc3576c-0f95-491f-af9d-8ee5cca86eec/summary

Professor Phillip Dawson: Assessment Design for a time of AI