CRITERION REFERENCED AND NORM REFERENCED TESTS

Kubiszyn and Borich (1996) claimed that the purpose of testing is to provide objective data that
can be used along with subjective impressions to make better educational decisions. They
discussed two main types of tests used to make educational decisions: criterion-referenced tests
and norm-referenced tests.

Criterion-referenced tests: Criterion-referenced tests provide information about a student's

level of proficiency in or mastery of some skill or set of skills. E.g. a criterion referenced test
designed for students would compare a student's performance to a standard of mastery called a
criterion. Such information tells us whether a student needs more or less work on some skills or
sub skills, but it says nothing about the student's performance relative to other students.

Norm referenced tests: Norm-referenced measures compare a person’s knowledge or skills to

the knowledge or skills of the norm group. The composition of the norm group depends on the
assessment. E.g. in the case of student assessment, norm referenced tests yield information
regarding the student's performance in comparison to a norm or average of performance by
similar students. As Brown (1976) noted, potentially there are a number of possible norm groups
for any test. Since a person's relative ranking may vary widely, depending upon the norm group
used for comparison, Brown claimed that the composition of the norm group is a crucial factor in
the interpretation of norm-referenced scores. Along similar lines, Crocker and Algina (1986, pp.
431-432) pointed out, The normative sample should be described in sufficient detail with respect
to demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, race or ethnic background, community or
geographic region, socioeconomic status, and educational background) to permit a test user to
assess whether it is meaningful to compare an examinee's performance to their norm's group.

Mc Daniel (1994) argued that the result of norming a test is always a table that allows the user to
convert any raw score to a derived score that instantly compares the individual with the
normative group.

NORMING

As stated earlier, norming is the process of constructing norms. Crocker and Algina (1986, p.
432) observed that the recommended procedures for conducting a norming study are similar
regardless of whether the norms are for local or broader use. These authors suggested the
following nine steps:

1. - Identify the population of interest (e.g., all students in a particular school district or all
applicants for admission to a particular program of study or type of employment).

2. - Identify the most critical statistics that will be computed for the sample data (e.g., mean,
standard deviation, percentile ranks).
3. - Decide on the tolerable amount of sampling error (discrepancy between the sample estimate
and the population parameter) for one of more of the statistics in step 2. (Frequently the sampling
error of the mean is specified.)

4. - Devise a procedure for drawing a sample from the population of interest.

5. - Estimate the minimum sample size required to hold the sampling error within the specified
limits.

6. - Draw the sample and collect the data. Document the reasons for any attrition which may
occur. If substantial attrition occurs (e.g., failure of an entire school to participate after it has
been selected into the sample), it may be necessary to replace this unit with another chosen by
the same sampling procedure.

7. - Compute the values of the group statistics of interest and their standard errors.

8. - Identify the types of normative scores that will be needed and prepare the normative
conversion tables.

9. - Prepare written documentation of the norming procedure and guidelines for interpretation of
the normative scores.