What type of assessment compares individual performance to a group standard, often represented by a bell curve?

Normative assessment is designed to compare an individual's performance to a group standard, which is often visualized through a bell curve. This type of assessment provides insight into how a student performs relative to their peers. By establishing a distribution of scores within a group, normative assessments help educators identify where an individual falls in relation to the average performance of the group, allowing for assessment of relative strengths and weaknesses.

In contrast, summative assessment typically evaluates student learning at the end of an instructional period, focusing on measuring what students have learned without comparing their performance to a peer group. Formative assessments are ongoing evaluations that inform instruction and support learning during the educational process, rather than providing a comparative measure against peers. Criterion-referenced assessments measure student performance against a set standard or predetermined learning objectives, rather than comparing it to the performance of other students.