Norm-Referenced Testing DERIVED SCORES REVIEWING THE ADEQUACY OF A NORM GROUP STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF NORM-REFERENCED TESTS THE STATUS OF NORM-REFERENCED TESTING

Norm-referenced testing is integral to the practice of psychological and educational testing. Originated in the work of modern statistics, this assessment method assumes that human traits and characteristics, such as intelligence, academic achievement, and behavior, are distributed along a normal probability or bell-shaped curve (hereafter, referred to as the normal curve). The normal curve represents the norm or average performance of a population and the scores that are above and below the average within that population. The norms for a test include percentile ranks, standard scores, and other statistics for the norm group on which the test was standardized. A certain percentage of the norm group falls within various ranges along the normal curve. Depending on the range within which test scores fall, scores correspond to various descriptors ranging from deficient to superior.