Norm-referenced, Criterion-referenced, and Dynamic Assessment: What exactly is the point?

Abstract

Assessment of individual children and young people has remained a major focus of professional activity for educational psychologists (EPs) and one surrounded by continuing controversy. Despite the arguments of the 'reconstructing movement' of the 1970s, and ensuing debates, individual assessment has survived seemingly as strong as ever. Subsumed within arguments concerning the prominence given to individual assessment, another set of discussions has concerned the paradigms from which such professional activity might derive. Located among constructs contrasting environment with individual and static with interactive perspectives, the particular debate within individual assessment has centred on the relative merits of norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, curriculum-based and dynamic methods. This article presents a taxonomy of purposes and procedures deriving from these major assessment paradigms. This collection is illustrated by examples taken from EP reports, and the relative familiarity and use of each approach by one major audience group is evaluated through examining questionnaire responses from 59 Special Educational Needs Coordinators within one Local Education Authority.