The Uses of Local Norms: A Question & Answer Overview. Research Brief. Volume 0406

The purpose of this paper is to promote local norms as a new way of reporting Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) results for Miami-Dade County district. The norms would: (1) show a student's relative standing in the district, and (2) show the student's growth compared to similar students. This paper presents questions about local norms, as well as answers to these questions. Questions include: (1) What are some of the special features of local norms?; (2) How useful are local norms in representing student performance?; (3) What types of measures do local norms provide?; (4) How is the status norm computed?; (5) What is the interpretation of the status norm?; (6) How is this status norm different from the gain norm?; (7) What is the interpretation of the gain norm?; (8) Isn't it possible for a student to have a high status norm and a low gain norm?; (9) Isn't it statistically improper to average percentiles?; (10) Won't the norms change each year?; (11) How will the status and gain norms be made available?; (12) What is the expected value for the average of status norms or gain norms for any group of students?; and (13) If the average gain norm for students taught by a particular teacher was unusually high, would that indicate a very effective teacher?