The Development And Application Of Age Progress Percentile Norms Of Elementary School Achievement
Origin of study.?Problems of individual learning have assumed somewhat greater prominence within the last decade than they previously had, and in the testing field greater attention is being given to developing better standard reference points for the evaluation of individuals than the traditional grade norms provide. In 1934 an opportunity was presented of studying the records of pupils in a small com munity who had been tested annually by Stanford Achievement Tests for five years. The major objective of the study was to de vise a method by which the progress of pupils as measured by tests might be used in evalu ating the effectiveness of the educational pro gram. The testing program in this commu nity had been inaugurated at the same time that the educational program in the elemen tary school had been radically modified in the direction of informality. Since the em phasis of the new program was upon the indi vidual pupil, it seemed that if an evaluation of the program in terms of measurement should be possible, it would come about through the evaluation of individual pupil growth. Need of individualized progress norms.?To measure individuals' growth adequately, the use of grade norms seemed inadequate. The author's belief was at that time, and still is, that a school grade, in a modern school, is an equivocal reference point to which to refer all questions of standards. If a child is not at age for grade, should his educational status be measured with reference to the school grade in which he is, or the one in which he should be if "rightly" placed for his age? For twenty years school testing programs have been accumulating evidence that: i. Even when there is considerable retarda tion and acceleration presumably to "adjust" pupils to their school work, it is found that pupils are not placed in grades in accordance with any rigid criterion that their school work is at that grade level. All school surveys have insistently shown that in any grade some pupils may be found whose accomplishment is two to four grades below the grade level and other pupils whose accomplishment is two to four grades above.