The norm-referenced evaluation system has been used to grade students, from elementary to post-secondary, for decades. However, the system itself is inherently flawed. Looking at the history of the norm-referenced system and its most famous tool, the Bell Curve, and taking examples from the author's own teaching experience, this paper examines the…

"Classroom Assessment in Action" clarifies the multi-faceted roles of measurement and assessment and their applications in a classroom setting. Comprehensive in scope, Shermis and Di Vesta explain basic measurement concepts and show students how to interpret the results of standardized tests. From these basic concepts, the authors then…

Early childhood teachers generally have not recognized that assessment is a necessary adjunct to effective teaching, but instead have concluded that it is the concern of special educators or program evaluators. In fact, assessment can play a most important role in planning for and instructing all children. Assessment can be defined as a conscious,…

Designed to serve as an introductory manual to mastery testing in science, this guide provides basic information about a variety of related topics such as mastery learning, criterion-referenced and norm-referenced testing, how to develop a mastery test, when and how to use a mastery test, limitations of mastery tests, and a list of mastery tests…

The purpose of instruction, whether face-to-face or online, is to facilitate student achievement of intended learning objectives. Traditionally, the major function of classroom assessment in undergraduate and graduate university courses has been to measure the individual student's learning in order to provide feedback to the student and to…

A norm-referenced evaluation system, which evaluates the student in comparison to his peers, is rejected in favor of a criterion-referenced system. The latter, which rates the performance of a student on an absolute standard, makes for an individualized approach. Two kinds of tests are distinguished, the formative, administered during the course…

A new standard setting method, Mapmark, was recently developed by ACT Inc. in the course of a contract with the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) to set achievement levels for the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Grade 12 mathematics. Mapmark includes elements of the bookmark method (Lewis, Mitzel, & Green, 1996;…

This paper is concerned with defining evaluation as a domain in instructional technology, and with specifying the sub-areas of the domain. In education, evaluation is the process of determining the adequacy of instruction. It begins with problem analysis, which refers to determining the nature of the solution and the parameters of the problem. A…