TRADITIONAL

ASSESSMENT

M Y R R H A F . T A G A N A S , R N
M A S T E R A N D
• Summative assessments seek to determine
what students know at the end of a
chapter, unit, or series of lectures on a
topic.

• Tests are just one of the tools used in

traditional assessment, although they often
receive the most attention and are the
most pervasive.
• Purposes:
– To evaluate if the students have learned
the content
– To determine whether or not the students
were successful in acquiring knowledge
– To ascribe a grade for the students
– To rank and compare the students against
standards or other learners
• Characteristics
– Provides the teacher a snapshot of what
the students know.
– Measure students knowledge of the
content.
– Require students to demonstrate
knowledge by selecting a response/giving
correct answers.
• Characteristics
– Test knowledge of what has been taught
by asking students to choose an answer
(true/false; multiple choice).
– Provide indirect evidence of learning.
– Require students to practice cognitive
ability to recall, recognize, reconstruct
body of knowledge that has been taught.
• Characteristics
– Test knowledge of what has been taught
by asking students to choose an answer
(true/false; multiple choice).
– Provide indirect evidence of learning.
– Require students to practice cognitive
ability to recall, recognize, reconstruct
body of knowledge that has been taught.
• Characteristics
– Hides the test.
– Teachers serve as evaluators; students are
the evaluatees: teacher – structured.
– Assessment is separated from teaching
and learning. Test usually comes after
instruction to evaluate if the students have
successfully learned the content.
• Characteristics
– Provides limited ways for students to
demonstrate what they have learned.
– Rigid and fixed.
– Standardized; valid and reliable.
– Curriculum drives assessment.
• Characteristics
– Product oriented
– Practical
– Reliable
– Validity
• Content
• Impact
– Summative
– Fosters extrinsic motivation
• Advantages
– Easy to score; Teachers can evaluate
students more quickly and easily.
– Requires less time and easier to prepare;
easy to administer
– Objective, reliable and valid
– Economical
• Disadvantages
– Provides students limited options to
demonstrate what they have learned,
usually limited to pencil and paper tests.
– Reveals and strengthens only the students’
low level cognitive skills: knowledge and
comprehension
• Disadvantages
– Involves students working alone; promotes
competitiveness
– Invokes feelings of anxiety detrimental to
learning
– Time is fixed and limited; students are
time-pressured to finish the test.
– Focuses on one form of intelligence
• Types
– Objective test items
– Essay test items
Objective test items

• Answers given are scored as either right or

wrong and no interpretations or judgment
on the part of the scorer is needed.
• The answers given by the students either
match the answers in the answer key or
not.
Major Categories
• Supply type test items
– Short answer test items
– Completion test items
• Selection Type test items
– True – false or alternative response
– Matching
– Multiple choice
 Supply type or Recall type
test items
• Constructed Response Test
• Requires students to create and supply
their own answers or perform a certain
task to show mastery of knowledge or
skills.
– Types: short answer test; completion
test
• Supply type test items
– Advantages
• It covers a broad range of topics in a
short span of time
• It is easier to prepare and less time
consuming
• It can effectively assess the lower level
of bloom’s taxonomy
• It reduces the possibility of guessing the
correct answer
• Supply type test items
– Disadvantages
• Only appropriate for questions that can be
answered with short responses.
• There is a difficulty in scoring when
questions are not prepared properly and
clearly
• It can assess only knowledge,
comprehension, and application, and to a
limited extent analysis and evaluation of
bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive domain
• Supply type test items
– Disadvantages
• Not adaptable in measuring complex
learning outcomes
• Scoring is tedious and time –
consuming when answers given are not
specific.
• Supply type test items
– Types
• Short answer test items
• Completion test items
• Short answer test items
– Questions are open-ended that require
students to create an answer.
– composed of a brief prompt that demands
a written answer that varies in length from
one or two words to a few sentences or
paragraph.
• Short answer test items
– Applications:
• Most often used to test basic
knowledge and understanding of key
facts and terms (topic) before more in-
depth assessment questions are asked
on the topic.
»Example: Describe the patterns in
an ECG tracing
• Short answer test items
– Applications:
• Short answer questions can also be
used to test higher thinking skills,
including analysis or evaluation
»Example: Make an inference on
the laboratory results of the
patient when it read as follows ….
• Short answer test items
– Advantages
• Easy and can be constructed faster than
multiple choice
• Short answer questions provide
students with more flexibility to explain
their understanding and demonstrate
creativity
• Short answer test items
– Advantages
• Short answer questions provide more
structure than essay questions and thus
are often easy and faster to mark and
often test a broader range of the course
content
• Short answer test items
– Tips for writing good short answer test items
• Avoid
– Trivia
– Long/complex sentences
• Use
– Own words
– Specific problems
– Direct questions
• Supply type test items
– Types
• Short answer test items
• Completion test items
• Completion test items
– Consist of incomplete statements
– Require the students to supply the missing
words, terms, symbols, numbers, etc.
» Example: The left atrium receives _______
blood from the lungs. The blood then
enters the left _______ through the
________ valve. Blood is then pumped to
the aorta towards the _______ circulation.
• Completion test items
– Tips for writing good completion test
items
• Avoid
–Taking out so many words that the
sentence becomes meaningless
• Use
–Prompts that omit only one or two
key words at the end of the sentence
Exercise

• Construct samples of supply type test

items based on the short story
– 2 short answer test items
– 2 completion test items