2.
2 Traditional Assessment
Traditionally, assessment is held at the end of teaching-learning process. Its
purpose is to know whether the students have understood the subject that is
learned or not. Certain grade is used to decide the understanding degree of the
students to the subject. If the students get a good grade at the test, it means that
they passed. On the contrary, they didn’t pass if they get bad grade. This notion is
the traditional notion of assessment (Budimansyah, 2002).
According to Solomon (2004), the traditional purpose of assessment is to
summarize student knowledge and progress at the conclusion of a unit of study.
Traditional assessment includes multiple-choice questions and asking students to
respond the questions with short answers.
From those notions of assessment, it is clear that traditional purpose of
teaching and learning process is in order the students can respond the questions
with correct answers. The product of learning is more emphasized then the
process it self. Teacher gives quizzes and tests to assess cognitive aspect only.
This kind of assessment is just recall students’ memorization. This is seldom
requiring students to apply what they know and can do in real-life situations. It
encourages instruction of less important skills and passive learning.
Table 2.1 bellow represents differences between Traditional Assessment and
Portfolio Assessment (Brown, 2004:13).
Table 2.1 Traditional and Portfolio Assessment
Traditional Assessment Portfolio Assessment
One-shot, standardized exams Continuous long-term assessment
Timed, multiple-choice format Untimed, free-response format
Decontextualized test items Contextualized communicative tasks
Scores suffice for feedback Individualized feedback
Norm-referenced scores Criterion-referenced scores
Focus on the “right” answer Open-ended, creative answers
Summative Formative
Oriented on product Oriented to process
Non-interactive performance Interactive performance
Fosters extrinsic motivation Fosters intrinsic motivation
2.3 Strength of Traditional Assessment
Although alternative forms of assessment are currently popular, traditional
assessment should not necessary be eliminated by other type of assessment
because it do have strength over other forms of assessment. According to Watson
and Taylor (1994), traditional tests are less time consuming than most other forms
of assessment, even when they include higher level thinking items. It is also
relatively easy to validate and determine internal consistency for traditional
multiple choice test. Brown and Shavelson (in Watson and Taylor, 1994) say that
traditional tests are valid for testing students’ factual knowledge.
2.4 Weakness of Traditional Assessment
The weakness of traditional assessment are described by Applebee (in
Luitel, 2002) that the traditional notion of assessment cannot assess the student
learning process realistically because it views the assessment as the notion of
knowledge-out-of-action. It tends to prompt the students to overcome with basic
skills only. Although basic skills may be important goals of education, they are
often over-emphasized in an effort to raise test scores. Basic skills and minimum
competencies become the overarching goal of schools and teachers as
accountability and minimum competency exams concentrate on these areas
(Bond, 1995).
In traditional assessment process, teachers give less attention and rarely to
assess the student’s work in every meeting. It brings the students become lack of
attention toward their error in finishing their work. According to Kasiram
(1984:10), learning will be on the decline if the students do not know the result of
their work. The students want to know feedback of their effort in doing the work
as a motivation in learning process. Dimyati and Mudjiono (2002:48) stated that
students would be more motivated in learning if the students know the result of
their work as a feedback.
