Standardized Tests

Standardized tests can provide a wealth of information relevant to the field of life-span human development. This is accomplished by comparing measures of behavior or status (e.g., academic aptitude and achievement or height and weight) to population averages to make current judgments relative to a norm or reference group. This entry describes two ways in which tests can be standardized, provides examples of how standardized tests are used in studying life-span human development, discusses reliability and validity of standardized tests, and covers limitations and potential biases of standardized tests.

[Page 2134]The term standardized is actually used in two related ways. First, tests can be standardized according to their administration and scoring procedures, and second, tests can be standardized according to the normative populations against which results ...