ABSTRACT
Understanding the many formal methods of assessing children’s knowledge, skills, or qualities requires more than just the possession of a bag of tricks. There are plenty of ‘techniques’ available, but it is important to know what they offer and, when there is a choice, which kind of formal assessment makes the best sense in what circumstances. This means understanding how tests are constructed, what they are attempting to assess, and how they are scored, interpreted and used. Many of the most commonly used tests are norm-referenced, that is, they place a pupil on some kind of scale in relationship to all the other possible candidates, as is described in Unit 2. Increasingly, however, different types of test are being used, based on different assumptions and procedures.
