Transforming Assessment: Evolving Practices for Climate Justice in Creative Education

The assessment of complex learning outcomes is a key challenge in higher education, particularly when evaluating students' engagement with urgent societal challenges like climate justice. While research has explored climate justice assessment across various disciplines (McCowan, 2020), less attention has been paid to the distinct challenges and opportunities within creative education. Here, traditional assessment methods must evolve to integrate practical and technical disciplinary competencies along with a critical understanding of climate justice principles (Sterling & Jickling, 2020; Shephard et al., 2019).

This study analyses learning outcomes and assessment practices across creative programs at one higher education institution, examining how climate justice principles are evaluated within a new, justice-focussed quality assurance framework. Through systematic analysis of institutional learning outcomes (Bearman et al., 2022), the research maps current assessment approaches and identifies novel, emergent practices that attempt to bridge creative and climate justice learning. Using the Scales of Transformation framework (O'Brien & Sygna, 2013; Centre for Sustainable, 2018), the study evaluates these practices in terms of the forms of engagement they foster with climate justice principles.

The findings offer practical insights into how assessment methods can be designed to capture meaningful engagement with climate justice principles in creative education. The study demonstrates the supporting role of principled quality assurance frameworks in enabling this innovation. It has particular relevance for institutions working to evolve their assessment methods to capture more meaningful engagement with climate justice principles.