Domain Testing: Divide and Conquer - Testing Education

weakness of this approach could be that the test content might have little
or no validity for the curriculum being evaluated. This weakness does
not exist in the criterion-based testing approach, which is discussed
next.
• Criterion-Referenced Testing: “In contrast with norm-referenced tests,
criterion-referenced tests are developed specifically to measure
performance against some absolute criterion” (Worthen et al., 1997, p.
352). Such testing has an edge over norm-referenced testing strategy
because the content of the tests is tailored according to a specific
curriculum and consequently is relevant to that curriculum (Worthen et
al., 1997). Every item on the test is also tied to some criterion, which
makes this testing strategy very effective. Dick et al. (2001) declared
that the terms “objectives-referenced” and “criterion-referenced” are
one and the same, except that “objectives-referenced” is used to be more
specific when tying the assessment or test items to the performance
objectives.
Dick et al. (2001) described four kinds of criterion-referenced tests:
o Entry Behavior Test: These tests are administered to the
learners to find out their level of expertise in the prerequisite
skills. If some learners perform poorly on this test, it might
mean that they would have great difficulty in succeeding in
the upcoming instruction or may not succeed at all.
o Pretest: The pretest is usually administered so that the score
can be compared with the score on the posttest to determine
how much the learners have really gotten out of the
instruction. This also means that both the pretest and posttest
should be equivalent in terms of difficulty level and what
performance objectives they address. Dick et al. (2001) also
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