What type of assessment involves a teacher observing a student perform real-world tasks, such as shopping?

Authentic assessment is designed to evaluate students' abilities in real-world contexts by assessing how they apply their knowledge and skills in practical situations. When a teacher observes a student performing a task like shopping, they are looking at how the student can use essential skills, such as budgeting, making decisions, and interacting with others, in a scenario that resembles situations they will encounter outside of the classroom.

This type of assessment focuses on meaningful tasks that demonstrate a student's understanding and competency in practical applications. In contrast, standardized assessments typically use fixed questions to measure students' knowledge against uniform criteria, while formative assessments are ongoing and aim to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback. Summative assessments evaluate learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Therefore, authentic assessment specifically highlights real-life application, making it the correct choice for this scenario.