Henrysson S. & Wedman I. 1974. Some Problems in Construction and Evaluation of Criterion-Referenced Tests. Scand. J. educ. Res.,18, 1-12. The interest in criterion-referenced tests has increased in a very obvious way in recent years. There are, however, many problems associated with a criterion-referenced testing procedure. In the first part of this study the effect of the aims on the construction of the tests, the homogeneity of the items and the cutting-scores for what should be regarded as satisfactory knowledge are dealt with. Concerning item-analysis of criterion-referenced tests several discrimination measures have been proposed. Some of these are discussed in the second part together with empirical data showing intercorrelations between them. The report ends with some comments on future work with criterion-referenced tests.
INTRODUCTIONIn recent years great interest has been shown in the forming of achievement tests in order to make them reflect the contents of the instruction. A distinction made here is the one between norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests (NRT and CRT respectively; Glaser 1963). In NRT the result of every individual is compared to the result of a norm group. In CRT, however, the individual results are compared to previously denned and specified standards.CRT has been created to show what the pupils can do and has its origin in the criticism recently directed at the using of tests in education constructed to rank individuals (see, e.g., Nitko 1970), which is one of the initial points at the construction of NRT.More specificially, the growing interest in CRT is a result of several trends: 1) Criticism of NRT for not giving information about actual standards -what is learned. 2) A growing interest in evaluation -both of individuals and systems. Evaluation is based upon established aims and the tests should tell if these aims are reached or not. A relative comparison between students or groups of students is not enough.
Wedman, I. & Stage, C. 1983. The Significance of Contents for Sex Differences in Test Results. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 27, 49-71. A common observation when using tests is that men and women arrive at different results. One of the proposed explanations to this fact is that the contents of the major parts of the tests are more adjusted to men's activities and interests. However, there are still many questions regarding the significance of the contents for obtained sex differences. The main purpose of this study was to examine to what extent it is possible to decide, by looking at the contents of the test items, which items are easy or difficult to judge for expected sex differences. Based on the item pool of the Swedish Scolastic Aptitude Test, two tests were constructed, a synonym test and a general knowledge test. The subjects were instructed to answer the items and to state whether they considered each item to be "male", "female" or "neutral". Results of this study show that sex differences are stable, but the possibilities to identify items which give rise to these differences between the sexes seem to be very limited. The hypothesis sometimes put forward that it is possible to predict which items give rise to sex differences was consequently not supported.
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