Final answer:
In a mastery approach to learning, most students may achieve high grades after mastering the material, leading to a negatively skewed distribution of grades, contrary to the normal distribution found in bell curves.
Step-by-step explanation:
The mastery approach to learning is focused on ensuring that all students achieve a high level of understanding before moving on to the next concept. This approach may not create a normal distribution of grades because it allows students as much time as they need to master the material. If all students are given sufficient resources and time to understand and master the materials, most of them can achieve high grades, leading to a distribution that could be negatively skewed.
In other words, there would be a higher frequency of high grades and fewer low grades, as opposed to a bell curve where there is an equal distribution of high, average, and low grades. As a result, some students may take longer to reach mastery than others, resulting in a distribution of grades that is skewed to the right.