Chapter 2: Improving Student Engagement Through Employer-Focused Assessment

This chapter examines the implementation and evaluation of a challenge-based learning (CBL) project in a postgraduate course, drawing on a three-phased teaching model that emphasises collaboration among academia, industry and extra-academic actors to solve real-world challenges through creative and authentic experiences. The flexibility afforded by this model highlighted the inherent value of core challenge-based learning principles – collaboration, real-world problem-solving and creative engagement. The course successfully provided students with hands-on, experiential learning opportunities, bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application.

Further, this study emphasises the importance of integrating various actors’ perspectives and enhancing community involvement by sharing students’ work with the professionals they engage with. The student course evaluations show that students felt equipped to complete the challenge, enjoyed working with businesses, and developed some essential 21st-century skills. Additionally, the chapter addresses the potential threat of generative artificial intelligence to academic integrity, highlighting the robustness of the challenge involving voice and face-recorded interviews, which are harder to falsify. Overall, the chapter illustrates that challenge-based learning as a pedagogical approach is flexible and adaptable, enriching students’ learning experiences while preparing them for real-world challenges and highlighting its societal impact and the learning opportunities it offers. The chapter is a vital resource for a wide readership that includes academics, academic development professionals and transnational programme directors involved in assessment design in higher education.