Background/Context: Previous research in educational assessment has consistently emphasized the importance of reliability as a cornerstone of test quality. Traditional measures of reliability, such as test-retest and split-half reliability, offer a broad view of how internally consistent a measure is but overlook the variability in this internal…

The article focuses on the controversy over norm-referenced v criterion-referenced measures (CRM) in assessment of learning disorders. The authors contend that while the reliability of CRMs is generally indisputable, the validity of measures designed from local curricula is still dependent on the intuitive judgments of teachers. (Author/SBH)