Norm referenced assessments compare a student's performance to what?

Norm-referenced assessments are designed to evaluate a student's performance in relation to a defined population of students, often referred to as a normative group. This approach allows educators to see where an individual student stands compared to their peers, typically in the same grade or age group.

The primary purpose of such assessments is to derive percentile rankings or scores that show how a student performs against the average performance of others. For example, being in the 75th percentile means that the student performed better than 75% of the students in the normative group. This comparison is particularly useful for identifying students who may be excelling or struggling relative to their peers.

In contrast, the other options focus on different comparison metrics. Specific learning goals target an individual's progress towards set educational outcomes, while comparing to an average score within the classroom focuses more on local classroom performance rather than a broader population. Curriculum standards set benchmarks for what students should know and be able to do, but they do not provide a comparative context to gauge where a student stands among their peers.