Problematizing Criterion Referenced Testing in the Indian Context

Tulika Prasad Associate Professor

(Dept.of English) University of Delhi

Various models of AssessmentNorm-referenced Assessment

Criterion –referenced Assessment

Ipsative Assessment

Norm referenced AssessmentWhat is Norm referenced Assessment?

Why the need to change to criterion referenced assessment ?

Criterion Referenced AssessmentWhat do we understand by criterion

referenced testing ?Is it better than norm referenced testing?How? While norm-referenced tests ascertains the

rank of students, criterion-referenced tests (CRTs) determine "...what test takers can do and what they know, not how they compare to others (Anastasi, 1988, p. 102).

Advantages of Criterion Referenced Assessment

Students learn based on their needs. Students study and practise their own goals

and objectives. Students are expected to achieve realistic

goals.Grades are solely dependent on how students

perform against their goals and objectives.

contd.

When students reach their goals, they feel a sense of accomplishment, which encourages them to keep trying their best and this will eventually, lead to better scores.

The whole concept of criterion-referenced instruction means that the teaching moves away from grade-level content to content based on what the students need.

  Norm-Referenced Criterion-Reference

Purpose To measure how much a test taker knows compared to another student.

To measure how much the test taker knows before and after the instruction is finished.

Content Norm-Referenced tests measure broad skill areas taken from a variety of textbooks and syllabi.

Criterion-Reference tests measure the skills the test taker has acquired on finishing a curriculum.

Score interpretation In Norm-Referenced tests, if a test taker ranks 95%, it implies that he/she has performed better than 95% of the other test takers.

In Criterion-Reference, the score determines how much of the curriculum is understood by the test taker.

 

Reliability of CRADefined in terms of consistency in the

classification of candidates to performance categories over a number of tests administered to them

Variation in candidate score is not important if candidates are still assigned the same performance category after taking a number of tests

Validity of CRA The match between the content of the test

items and the knowledge or skills that they are intended to measure

The match between the collection of test items and what they measure and the domain of content that the tests are expected to measure

Disadvantages of CRA Creating tests that are both valid and

reliable requires fairly extensive and expensive time and effort

Results cannot be generalized especially if the criteria set for a course is specific only for that course or the criteria has been defined in a very narrow sense.

Overview of CEFR

What is CEFR ?

Issues in implementing CEFR

Assessment in the Indian Context Issues of of assessment in our (Indian)

schools and universities

Impact of this kind of assessment

How to resolve this: alternatives available

Criterion Referenced Testing in the Indian ContextValidity of using CEFR scales in a

multilingual context (India).

Challenges of CRA in the Indian context

Discussion of a CRA modelPromises and problems of this model.

Is there hope at the end of the tunnel ?

Ipsative Assessment

What is Ipsative assessment?

Is it a viable alternative?

How? Students are only judged against themselves, therefore they have a better chance of scoring high, which will help improve their self-esteem as well.