Which concept is most associated with using clear mastery levels and rubrics to determine whether a student has achieved the objective?

• A. Norm-Referenced
• B. Reliability
• C. Criterion-Referenced
• D. Content Quality

Answer: (C)

Mastery-based assessment rests on clearly defined standards that spell out what a student must know or be able to do. Rubrics articulate each criterion of the objective and define levels of performance that count as meeting or surpassing the standard. By evaluating a student’s work against these explicit criteria, you determine whether the objective has been achieved, not whether the student merely compares favorably to peers. This is in contrast to norm-referenced approaches, which judge performance relative to a group; reliability, which focuses on consistency of scores; and content quality, which concerns how well the items cover the subject area. So, using clear mastery levels and rubrics aligns with assessing achievement directly against defined objectives, i.e., criterion-referenced assessment.