PSY 370 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Psy, Standard Deviation
Document Summary
Sometimes we are more interested in absolute information. Norms are the average scores of some predefined group we want to compare to. Norm-referenced tests are given to a clearly defined norm group. Statistics for this norm group are included in the test manual. Need to consider the composition of the norm group to know how to interpret test score. Representativeness of the norm group is more or less important depending on who and what you are using the test for. High stakes testing, diverse populations, etc. call for higher levels of representativeness. Representative norm groups require careful attention to sampling. Pay attention to the description of the norm group. Read this part of the test manual very carefully. Norms may influence how a test is scored. If you send the test off for scoring and get back percentiles, stanines, t-scores, etc. , those scores are probably based on the norms (they had to get a mean and standard deviation from somewhere!)
