Which term describes evaluating an individual's performance against a pre-established acceptable standard rather than against peers?

• A. Criterion-Referenced
• B. Norm-Referenced
• C. Meaningfulness
• D. Self-Referenced

Answer: (D)

Evaluating performance against a pre-established standard is criterion-referenced assessment. It uses defined criteria or objectives and judges whether the learner meets those specific benchmarks, independent of how others perform. For example, a Spanish grammar test might require correctly using a set of verb tenses and punctuation rules, with a passing score determined by those criteria rather than by ranking against peers.

In contrast, norm-referenced assessment compares a learner’s score to a norm group (peers), self-referenced assessment compares current performance to the learner’s own past performance, and meaningfulness concerns how relevant or interpretable the results are.