Imagine paying $3,000 for a program, only to finish with a journal that no one (including you) will ever look at again.
How motivated would you be? Probably not much, right? Sadly, this is the reality of far too many adult learning programs.
Adult learning has what I call an “authenticity problem”: course creators keep producing content while learners are looking for practical change. The problem isn’t necessarily that the content is inaccurate or poorly presented. It’s that the learning is often inauthentic. Learners are asked to complete generic worksheets, answer reflection questions or recall information for a quiz, but rarely produce anything that helps them address the real reason they enrolled.
Adults Do Not Enrol Just to Know More
Authentic learning involves tasks that mirror the challenges learners will face outside the course. Instead of completing work that exists solely to prove they watched the videos, learners produce something they can actually use: a plan, a pitch, a portfolio, a prototype, a strategy or a new way of working.
Influential adult learning theorist Malcolm Knowles identified that adult learners tend to be problem-centred. They’re motivated to develop knowledge and skills that can be applied to their lives, careers and immediate challenges.
In other words, adults rarely enrol simply because they want to know more.
They enrol because they want to improve something:
- Their career.
- Their business.
- Their performance.
- Their confidence.
- Or their future opportunities.
Yet, much of adult and online education is still built around content delivery, talking-head videos, attendance and completion. Even when learners finish a program and report being satisfied, providers often have limited evidence that the learning has transferred into changed behaviour, improved performance or better real-world outcomes.
The OECD’s 2025 review of adult learning found that much adult training is short in duration and driven by compliance or safety requirements—an approach that may be insufficient for genuine upskilling and reskilling. OECD research also suggests that simply accumulating skills does not guarantee meaningful economic or workplace benefits when those skills are underused or poorly matched to the tasks people actually perform.
The missing ingredient is often authentic application.
Learning becomes considerably more valuable when participants work on substantial, real-world challenges and produce outcomes that matter beyond the course itself.
The Real Goal Is Transfer
In learning design, transfer is the process through which learners apply knowledge, skills or attitudes acquired in one setting to a new or real-world environment. For adult learners, transfer is not a secondary benefit. It is usually the entire point.
They’re not learning how to create a business strategy so they can explain the definition of strategy in a quiz. They want to develop a strategy they can use in their business.
They’re not learning presentation skills so they can list the principles of public speaking. They want to deliver a confident presentation to a real audience.
They are not learning career-planning frameworks so they can complete another worksheet. They want to make a better career decision, prepare for an interview or secure a new role. Designing for transfer therefore requires aligning the learning experience with the performance learners will eventually need to demonstrate.
This is where assessment becomes one of the most important—and most overlooked—parts of program design.
Assessment Shapes the Entire Learning Experience
Assessment is often treated as something added at the end of a program. Create the modules then record the videos. Add a quiz. Ask learners to submit a final reflection. Snooze-fest. But the design of the final assessment influences the value of the entire learning experience.
A strong assessment does not simply ask:
What information can the learner remember?
It asks:
What can the learner now do that they could not do before?
Authentic assessments ask learners to perform meaningful tasks within a realistic context. They assess functioning knowledge: the ability to use knowledge to accomplish something.
These are sometimes called performance assessments and can include practical projects, simulations, workplace tasks, portfolios, demonstrations and work-integrated learning.
By contrast, decontextualised assessments—such as traditional exams, generic essays and recall-based quizzes—often assess declarative knowledge: whether someone can explain what to do.
Knowing how to describe a process is not the same as being able to perform it. A learner might be able to list the stages of conducting a difficult workplace conversation and still struggle when facing an upset employee. They may be able to define customer research and still be unable to plan and conduct a useful interview. They may understand the theory behind building an offer and still finish the course without an offer they can confidently sell.
Many traditional assessments measure recently taught information but fail to assess whether learners can apply that information flexibly and meaningfully in context.
Assessment for Learning
Assessment does not need to happen only at the end of a program.
Formative assessment, sometimes described as assessment for learning, occurs throughout the learning experience. Its purpose is not primarily to grade the learner. It is to help them practise, receive feedback and improve before they need to perform independently.
Effective formative assessments might include:
- drafting one section of a business plan and receiving feedback;
- practising a sales conversation through a role-play;
- analysing a realistic client scenario;
- producing a prototype and testing it with another learner;
- recording a short presentation and reviewing it against clear criteria;
- applying a framework to a current workplace challenge;
- receiving feedback from peers, facilitators or real users.
These activities support transfer because learners repeatedly practise using their knowledge in situations that resemble the environment in which they will eventually need it.
The work becomes progressively more complex, and feedback helps learners correct misunderstandings before those misunderstandings become habits.
Assessment of Learning
Summative assessment, or assessment of learning, usually occurs at the end of a program. It’s what’s more generally known as the final assignment, the capstone or final test. It evaluates whether the learner has achieved the intended learning outcomes.
But a final assessment does not need to mean a multiple-choice exam or a long written report.
A valuable summative assessment might involve:
- presenting a strategic recommendation to a panel;
- developing a portfolio ready to show prospective employers;
- creating a business, marketing or implementation plan;
- facilitating a real or simulated workshop;
- producing a client proposal;
- completing a realistic workplace simulation;
- designing and testing a prototype;
- demonstrating a process in front of an assessor;
- implementing a change and reflecting on the results.
The strongest final assessments produce something learners can continue using after the program ends. The assessment is not merely evidence that the course was completed. It becomes part of the learner’s progress in the real world.
Learners Work Towards What They Think Matters
Assessment also creates what learning theorists call backwash.
As Biggs and Tang explain:
“What and how students learn depends to a major extent on how they think they will be assessed.”
Learners naturally focus their attention on what they believe will matter at the end.
If the final assessment rewards memorisation, they are likely to memorise.
If it rewards repeating the facilitator’s language, they are likely to repeat it.
If it rewards completing superficial activities, they will learn how to complete those activities as efficiently as possible.
This is what we call “negative backwash”: the assessment encourages strategies that override meaningful learning. Teaching to the test is the most obvious example.
But backwash can also be positive and constructive.
When the assessment, learning activities and intended outcomes are aligned, learners are encouraged to engage more deeply.
A program designed to help someone develop a client acquisition strategy should end with a usable client acquisition strategy—not a quiz about client acquisition.
A program designed to prepare someone for a new career should result in evidence they can use to pursue that career.
A leadership program should require learners to practise leadership, make decisions, receive feedback and apply what they have learned to their teams.
The assessment tells learners what the program truly values.
Start With Something Worth Creating
One of the simplest ways to improve a program is to redesign the final assignment as a useful artefact.
Ask yourself:
What could the learner create, demonstrate or change during this program that would still be valuable after the program has ended?
Once you have identified that outcome, work backwards.
Each module can help learners develop one component of the final result. Each activity can give them an opportunity to practise a skill they will eventually need. Each feedback point can help them improve the work before they apply it in the real world.
Instead of completing disconnected homework, learners progressively build something meaningful.
By the end, they have not merely consumed a course. They would have created evidence of what they can now do. Just real work that prepares learners for the real world.
So, what could your learners create during your program that they would be proud to show a colleague, employer or client?