Engagement has long been considered a key element in higher education due to its crucial impact on learning outcomes. It is argued that student engagement in recent years has been experiencing more challenges for multiple reasons. Partially influenced by this, assessment integrity has suffered, and the situation has been worsened due to the widespread text-generating AI tools. To explore the approaches to overcoming these challenges, it is important to recognise the different ways of life possessed by the current generations in higher education, understanding their manners of perceiving, learning and studying, which require different approaches to be used to engage them. Hence, this study attempts to explore new paths of assessment designing, aiming at improving student engagement and reducing assessment plagiarism fuelled by third parties such as AI tools and paid agencies, simultaneously enhancing its ability to assist students in obtaining learning outcomes and actively thriving in higher education. Observations and reflections are conducted based on a series of practice in business modules in a higher education foundation programme. A few strategies are examined and suggested in similar subjects and even more broadly in other qualitative modules. They include: 
1. Integrating assessments in the learning process, emphasising the process rather than the end;
2. Using fragmented and assessed tasks to cultivate a sense of event in student life loads;
3. Designing assessments based on unique and specific contexts, including student self-created and peer co-created experiences or contents;
4. Increasing practical and fun elements such as using simulation games in assessments.

Authors:
Qianqian Chai, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Qianqian Chai is a Lecturer in Business Management at the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary University of London, teaching across disciplines of Business, Management, and Marketing.

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