While norm-referenced tests are not the focus of ongoing national debates about “high-stakes testing,” they are nonetheless the object of much debate. The essential disagreement is between those who view norm-referenced tests as objective, valid, and fair measures of student performance, and those who believe that relying on relative performance results is inaccurate, unhelpful, and unfair, especially when making important educational decisions for students. While part of the debate centers on whether or not it is ethically appropriate, or even educationally useful, to evaluate individual student learning in relation to other students (rather than evaluating individual performance in relation to fixed and known criteria), much of the debate is also focused on whether there is a general overreliance on standardized-test scores in the United States, and whether a single test, no matter what its design, should be used—in exclusion of other measures—to evaluate school or student performance.
It should be noted that perceived performance on a standardized test can potentially be manipulated, regardless of whether a test is norm-referenced or criterion-referenced. For example, if a large number of students are performing poorly on a test, the performance criteria—i.e., the bar for what is considered “passing” or “proficient”—could be lowered to “improve” perceived performance, even if students are not learning more or performing better than past test takers. For example, if a standardized test administered in eleventh grade uses proficiency standards that are considered to be equivalent to eighth-grade learning expectations, it will appear that students are performing well, when in fact the test has not measured learning achievement at a level appropriate to their age or grade. For this reason, it is important to investigate the criteria used to determine “proficiency” on any given test—and particularly when a test is considered “high stakes,” since there is greater motivation to manipulate perceived test performance when results are tied to sanctions, funding reductions, public embarrassment, or other negative consequences.
The following are representative of the kinds of arguments typically made by proponents of norm-referenced testing:
• Norm-referenced tests are relatively inexpensive to develop, simple to administer, and easy to score. As long as the results are used alongside other measures of performance, they can provide valuable information about student learning.
• The quality of norm-referenced tests is usually high because they are developed by testing experts, piloted, and revised before they are used with students, and they are dependable and stable for what they are designed to measure.
• Norm-referenced tests can help differentiate students and identify those who may have specific educational needs or deficits that require specialized assistance or learning environments.
• The tests are an objective evaluation method that can decrease bias or favoritism when making educational decisions. If there are limited places in a gifted and talented program, for example, one transparent way to make the decision is to give every student the same test and allow the highest-scoring students to gain entry.
The following are representative of the kinds of arguments typically made by critics of norm-referenced testing:
• Although testing experts and test developers warn that major educational decisions should not be made on the basis of a single test score, norm-referenced scores are often misused in schools when making critical educational decisions, such as grade promotion or retention, which can have potentially harmful consequences for some students and student groups.
• Norm-referenced tests encourage teachers to view students in terms of a bell curve, which can lead them to lower academic expectations for certain groups of students, particularly special-needs students, English-language learners, or minority groups. And when academic expectations are consistently lowered year after year, students in these groups may never catch up to their peers, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. For a related discussion, see high expectations.
• Multiple-choice tests—the dominant norm-referenced format—are better suited to measuring remembered facts than more complex forms of thinking. Consequently, norm-referenced tests promote rote learning and memorization in schools over more sophisticated cognitive skills, such as writing, critical reading, analytical thinking, problem solving, or creativity.
• Overreliance on norm-referenced test results can lead to inadvertent discrimination against minority groups and low-income student populations, both of which tend to face more educational obstacles that non-minority students from higher-income households. For example, many educators have argued that the overuse of norm-referenced testing has resulted in a significant overrepresentation of minority students in special-education programs. On the other hand, using norm-referenced scores to determine placement in gifted and talented programs, or other “enriched” learning opportunities, leads to the underrepresentation of minority and lower-income students in these programs. Similarly, students from higher-income households may have an unfair advantage in the college-admissions process because they can afford expensive test-preparation services.
• An overreliance on norm-referenced test scores undervalues important achievements, skills, and abilities in favor of the more narrow set of skills measured by the tests.
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