Memes as a tool for evaluating learning. A case at the university

Memes are a product of popular digital culture that, despite their virality, humor, creativity and everyday life, are semiotically dense, neither neutral nor innocuous. The complexity that a meme can entail allows us to think about its potential use as a tool for learning assessment. This paper presents the process for the construction of an instrument based on the creation of memes (memetics constructs) within the framework of the subject "Teaching and Learning in the Digital Society" of the degree in pedagogy at the University of Barcelona. For this purpose, the design phases of constructing the instrument for assessing memetic constructs are presented, along with the criteria and learning assessment results. In general terms, the image that this experience leaves us is that memes would allow us to apprehend complex learning thanks to their multimodal capacity to reveal students' beliefs and opinions. Memes can be an alternative for assessing competency-based learning that goes beyond entrusting the assessment to a specific software and is based on taking advantage of the dynamics of digital culture. This use, however, requires pedagogical design and, in turn, digital competence of both learners and teachers.