Evaluation Models for Criterion-Referenced Testing: Views Regarding Mastery and Standard-Setting

Abstract

In the dozen years since Glaser's (1963) seminal article on criterion-referenced testing, the acceptance of the concept of mastery as an educational and, hence, evaluation goal has grown tremendously. A large number of articles have been published, curriculum programs have been devised that employ criterionreferenced testing, and yet writers still feel it necessary to define what a criterion-referenced test is. Furthermore, the various published definitions are by no means equivalent. One also observes a shift in the interests and background of the authors of papers over this period. In the Sixties, writers were primarily advocating the adoption of criterion-referenced testing from an educational or philosophical point of view in spite of the reservations of the classical measurement theorists, whereas in the Seventies a new generation of measurement specialists have begun to be involved, and the papers are much more mathematical. A number of mathematically-based techniques for deciding