ABSTRACT
The specification of domains is the most crucial process in criterion-referenced assessment. Very often it leads directly to the generation of assessment procedures. Sometimes it identifies areas where curriculum rhetoric has suggested pupils should be achieving, but there is no corresponding assessment. It centred on the relative value and the characteristics of norm-referenced assessment and criterion-referenced assessment. When the purpose of assessment is formative or diagnostic, the domains of achievement will be small. Where criterion referencing is used for summative reporting purposes, the problems of domain specification become more acute. The specification of domains is the most crucial process in criterion-referenced assessment. Because criterion-referenced assessment has an intimate relationship with teaching and learning, it may be most appropriately designed and implemented by those in classrooms. Traditional notions of reliability and validity, however, cannot be discarded; it is still necessary that assessments provide reliable accounts of those qualities which they claim to assess.
