Байланысты: COLLECTION of Сonferences XXIV «Akhanov readings» 2021
Traditional and alternative assessment. Year by the year assessment system is changing
gradually and there are two paradigms of assessment – old and new. As Reeves [9] mentions in
recent years alternative assessment approaches becoming powerful competing with traditional
assessment which is known as testing. The impact of testing on curriculum and instruction acts as
the reason of shift towards alternative assessment [12].
Traditional assessment focuses on isolated skills and has one answer to a particular problem,
while in non-traditional assessment integral skills are assessed and there are multiple answers on
specific issues. Bailey [10] states that traditional assessments has inauthentic and indirect nature and
describe it as speed-based, norm-referenced and single- occasion test. The role of feedback is also
not considered in traditional assessment. Moreover Smaldino et al. (2000) mentions that traditional
assessment assesses learners lower order thinking skills that include such abilities such as
memorization and recall, whereas alternative assessment focus on assessing higher order thinking
skills of students. Another aspect that needs to be emphasized is that in a traditional assessment test
is like a test just for grading, however, alternative assessment sees the test as a teaching tool,
because it helps learners learn from their mistakes, teachers can develop their it helps learners learn
from their mistakes, teachers can develop their abilities and find the best way of teaching [8].
On the other hand, traditional assessment has it is own advantages as alternative assessment
has drawbacks. According to Law and Eckes (1995) traditional assessment strategies are valid,
reliable and more objective. This is especially true in case of standardized tests and various types of
multiple-choice tests. In turn, alternative assessment strategies are not reliable, valid and objective
enough. For example, portfolios that used in alternative assessment may lack reliability [10].