The purpose of this research was to determine if the GMAT actually mattered for MBA student performance. A waiver option was recently instituted in our MBA program based on GPA and/or professional experience, providing the ability to compare group differences (GMAT vs non-GMAT students) on several relevant outcome variables, including: (1)…

In order to remain relevant and useful, testing programs must periodically update their tests to match shifts in student populations and school curricula. One might think that because the publishers are offering a product, the responsibility for updates rests entirely on them. Publishers conduct studies to assure new content is appropriate. But…

This study investigates whether the outcomes of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) can predict the academic achievement of enrollees in masters programs. The study is based on administrative data of 516 Masters of Business Administration (MBA) enrollees at the College of Business and Management Science, Makerere University in the 2011…

Quantitative literacy has been recognized as an important skill in the higher education and workforce communities, focusing on problem solving, reasoning, and real-world application. As a result, there is a need by various stakeholders in higher education and workforce communities to evaluate whether college students receive sufficient training on…

Traditionally, graduate programs in business administration have heavily relied on the Graduate Management Aptitude Test prepared and administered by the Educational Testing Service in the decision to admit a candidate to the program. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature regarding the statistical validity and statistical…

When power tests include a time limit, it is important to assess the possibility of "speededness" for examinees. Research on differential speededness in the past has included looking at gender and ethnic subgroups in the United States on paper and pencil tests. The needs of a global audience necessitated, and the availability of computer…

A comprehensive review was conducted of writing research literature and writing test program activities in a number of testing programs. The review was limited to writing assessments used for admission in higher education. Programs reviewed included ACT, Inc.'s ACT™ program, the California State Universities and Colleges (CSUC) testing program,…

The e-rater® system has been used by ETS for automated essay scoring since 1999. This paper describes a new version of e-rater (v.2.0) that differs from the previous one (v.1.3) with regard to the feature set and model building approach. The paper describes the new version, compares the new and previous versions in terms of performance, and…