What type of assessment often involves standardized tests comparing one student's performance to a peer group?

The type of assessment that involves standardized tests comparing one student's performance to a peer group is called a norm-referenced assessment. This form of assessment is designed to evaluate a student's performance by comparing it to the performance of other students who have taken the same test. This allows educators to see not only where an individual student stands in relation to their peers but also to identify the overall distribution of skills within the group.

Norm-referenced assessments are often used for various purposes, such as determining eligibility for certain programs, evaluating school effectiveness, or placing students into appropriate educational tracks. The goal is to rank students, as opposed to determining if they have met a specific set of criteria or standards.

In contrast, criterion-referenced assessments are used to measure a student's performance against a fixed set of standards or criteria, rather than against the performance of peer students. Qualitative assessments focus on descriptive, non-numerical data, such as observations and interviews, rather than on standardized testing. Training evaluation typically assesses the effectiveness of training programs, not student performance in an academic context.