CRITERION-REFERENCED

MEASURE
AND
NORM-REFERENCED
MEASURE
CRITERION-REFERENCED MEASURE
- Defined as a test that determines whether a student
has reached the goals of the learning task.
- This task is specific, observable, measurable,
achievable, and interpretable.
- It is constructed to provide a measure that is
interpreted in terms of specific performance criteria.
It serves to identify on what extent the individuals
performance has met in a given criterion.
- Identified weak and strong points in an individual
performance.
- Also help indicate which child will have to be moved
to the next learning task with a fair degree of
accuracy.
NORM-REFERENCED MEASURE
- Defined as a measure which compares a
student’s achievement with the achievement of
other students in the class.
- The comparison is made between the
achievement of an individual student and the
achievement of other students to ascertain how
much has been performed or achieved.
- The meaningfulness of the individual score is
dependent on the comparison with other
students.
Illustration below that student’s achievement is within the mean, above the
mean and below the mean.

The illustration above shows three student’s achievements in English test are
compared. Student’s A achievement is 80 which is within the mean; student
C is 85, above the mean; and student B, 75, below the mean. I other words,
Student A is average; student C above average; and student B below
average.
 Criterion-Referenced
Measure
- Used if the purpose is to determine
how much change in terms of
behavior of the learner has taken
Distinctions place before and after instruction.
between
Criterion Referenced
- Determines whether the student
and
has mastered an instructional
Norm-Referenced
objective in relation to an
Measure;
established standard of
performance.
- Includes items of reasonable length
either the item is answered by all
students or missed totally, since the
purpose is to determine the mastery
of the learning task,
Norm-Referenced
Measure
- Measure the achievement of an
individual is judged by comparing his
standing with the other individual in
the class.
- Determines the comparison of an
individual with some norm groups
without knowing what one can do,
has mastered or cannot do.
- Discards the easiest and the most
difficult questions since the purpose
is to spread out the individuals as
much as possible in order to know
how one differs from the another.
 Steps in the Preparation of
Criterion-Referenced Measure
Example:
Given 10 pieces of different kinds of leaves, pencil and paper, a Grade V pupil will be
able to identify, differentiate, and classify monocot leaves from dicot leaves and in 20
minutes draw the monocot and dicot leaves.
The foregoing example has four basic characteristics, it also known as ABCD;
Audience. In our example, the Grade V pupil is the audience or learner where the
objective is directed.
Behavior. In the above example, the behaviors called for in the instructional objective
are to identify, differentiate, classify, and draw.
Conditions of learning. In the same example, the conditions of learning are given 10
pieces of different kinds of leaves, pencil and paper. To measure if the instruction is really
effective, the condition in the test should be parallel with this condition of learning.
STEP 1:
Degree of performance. Degree of performance indicates how well or how much
teacherCLEARLY
expects aDEFINING THE INSTRUCTIONAL
student performance. OBJECTIVES
Twenty minutes IN of
is the degree BEHAVIORAL
performance
on the foregoing example. TERMS.
- A teacher should make an
STEP 2:
outline of the content to be
covered by the test because an
OUTLINING THE
achievement test should
CONTENT.
adequately sample the subject
matter included in the
instruction. Similar content
outline should be developed for
teaching and testing purposes.
 -A table of specifications is a one-way table that
relates the instructional objectives to the course
content. To simplify the table, only the general
STEP 3:
instructional objectives and the major areas of the
PREPARING
content are THE TABLE
included. TheOF SPECIFICATIONS.
relative stress on the
number of items in the table of specifications should
reflect the emphasis given in the instructional
objective.