Norm-Referenced Test &

Criterion-Referenced Test

 Miss Elle wants to know if her curriculum

will help students learn reading skill, and
she's written a reading test for the
students to take. But how should she
determine what passing means?

Norm-Referenced Test
Definition
A norm-referenced test scores a test by
comparing a person's performance to others
who are similar.
The object of a norm-referenced test is to
compare a person's performance to what is
normal for other people like him or her on that
age, grade or class.

But norm-referenced tests aren't perfect.

They aren't completely objective and
make it hard to know anything other than
how someone did in comparison to others.
But what if we want to know about a
person's performance without comparing
them to others?

Criterion-Referenced Test
Definition
To measure the performance of test takers
against the criteria covered in the
curriculum.
Criterion-referenced test is scored on an
absolute scale with no comparisons
made. It is interested in one thing only: did
you meet the standards?

Norm-Referenced
Test

Purpose

- To measure how much a

test taker knows
compared to another
student.
- To discriminate between
high and low achievers

CriterionReferenced Test
To measure how much the
test taker known before
and after the instruction is
finished.

Content

Measure broad skill areas

taken from a variety of
textbooks and syllabi.

Measure the skills the test

taker has acquired on
finishing a curriculum

Administrati
on

Must be administered in a
standardized format.

Need not be administered

in a standardized format.

NormReferenced Test
Each individual is
Score
compared with other
Interpretation examinees and
assigned a score

Example

-SAT (reading,writing,
Math)
-IQ tests
-tests that are graded
on a curve

CriterionReferenced Test
-Each individual is
compared with a preset
standard for acceptable
achievement.
-The performance of other
examinees is irrelevant.