Which type of student assessment measures the accomplishment of one student against that of another?

Norm-referenced assessments are designed to compare an individual student's performance to that of a larger group, typically peers who have taken the same assessment. This type of measurement allows educators to understand how a student's scores relate to the average or typical performance within a defined population, thus providing a context that helps to understand where a student stands in relation to others.

By using this method, instructors can identify students who perform above or below the norm, which can be particularly useful for evaluating a student's relative strengths and weaknesses. It can also assist in making decisions about grouping students for instruction or identifying exceptional performers.

The other types of assessments, such as criterion-referenced, focus on whether a student meets specific predetermined standards rather than comparing them to other students. Performance-based assessments gauge a student's ability to perform tasks or skills, while self-referenced assessments evaluate a student's performance against their previous results. Thus, these approaches do not provide the comparative framework that norm-referenced assessments offer.