Norm-Referenced Tests
Norm-Referenced tests are standardized based on a representative group.
Student performance is compared to a standardized group with such statements as:
Your child scored scored at the 50% percentile on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. That can be interpreted to mean that 49% of the students that took the test scored lower and 49% of the students scored higher.
Your child scored scored at the 99% percentile on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. That can be interpreted to mean that 99% of the students that took the test scored lower, none of the students scored higher, and 1% had the same score.
Your child scored scored at the 75% percentile on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. That can be interpreted to mean that 74% of the students that took the test scored lower, 24% of the students scored higher, and 1% scored the same.
Examples or norm-referenced tests:
Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) |
California Achievement Test (CAT) |
American College Testing (ACT) |
Metropolitan Reading Readiness Test (MRT) |
Cognitive Abilities
Test (CogAt) |
Strengths:
- Provide information about the achievement of individual students or groups of students
- Identification of possible ways to improve school curriculums or programs
- Purchased, administered, and scored inexpensively
- Supplements other assessment methods to clarify the larger picture of student performance
- Objective scoring procedure
Concerns/Weaknesses:
- People too often miss use test to categorize and label students in ways that can cause damage
- People frequently misuse test scores to make improper comparisons between schools, districts, classes
- Fails to promote individual student learning
- Is a poor predictor of individual student performance
- Usually mismatches with the content of a schoolÕs curriculum
- Can be used to dictate and restrict curriculum
- People too often assume that test scores are infallible
- Too often people develop an over reliance on this one type of assessment
- Results are based on a normal distribution (bell-shaped curve)
- Measures students against other students
- Sorts students into winners and losers
- Does not test for what students know in a manner that can be used to facilitate learning.
Dr. Robert Sweetland's Notes ©