Norm-referenced refers to a set of tests that are standardized for the purposes of evaluating how students understand the content being taught. In a school setting, they are used in comparing the performance of students against each other and the average score. The participating students are from a norm-referenced group composed of people from a similar culture, ethnic background, or any other characteristics (Çuhadar & Gelbal, 2021). Usually, a specific skill, criterion, or trait is used for the evaluation analysis. The teachers draw the takers of the test from a group of students with similar conditions to enable in evaluating their performance. The most common norm-referenced test is the comparison of IQ to benchmark it against the average IQ of 8.0. A score of 100 indicates that a person’s IQ is above average while a score below 80 indicate learning impairments or need for special care (Muthaiyan & Ananthi, 2020). Hence, norm-referenced tests are important tools that enable teachers to evaluate the performance of their students.
Norm-referenced testing is important because it helps in measuring how the students have mastered the knowledge taught in class. Additionally, the test administered is of high quality and reliable, which helps in giving meaningful information about the average performance of students (Collins, 2019). Norm-referenced testing informs decision-making on the educational needs, reveals the progress of students, and helps in the identification of risk of failure (Collins, 2019). However, the disadvantage is that creating valid and reliable tests that are not biased requires time and effort to achieve. The teachers base their knowledge on the past performance or how the previous test was set, which makes them fail to teach students full curriculum content. However, in a class setting, norm-referenced testing is an important tool for identifying which areas the students are weak in (Collins, 2019). As such, the information it gives will help to focus the attention on topics that students scored lowly. Additionally, the test will help in identifying students with learning difficulties and design corrective measures of helping them.
References
Collins, C. (2019). What are the advantages of norm-referenced testing? DRAFTLESSIG.ORG. Web.
Çuhadar, İ., & Gelbal, P. (2021). An evaluation of pass/fail decisions through norm- and criterion-referenced assessments. International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education, 9-20. Web.
Muthaiyan, R., & Ananthi, B. (2020). Norm-referenced test, criterion-referenced test and self-referenced test frameworks. Journal of Information and Computational Science, 10(5), 605-618.