Affirmative action in education is once again in the media and cultural spotlight. The Trump administration, along with a decidedly rightward shift on the Supreme Court, signal a bleak outlook for affirmative action policies in higher education. However, as educators, we can also use this historical moment to have robust and critical conversations…

The purpose of this study was to determine the most important factors in predicting academic outcomes at the post-secondary level. With an increasing number of students attending college and the spiraling costs of post-secondary education there is a greater need, now more than ever, to discern the most important factors in positive academic…

Social-psychological research conducted over the past 15 years provides compelling evidence that pervasive psychological threats are present in common academic environments--especially threats that originate in negative intellectual stereotypes--and that these threats undermine the real-world academic performance of non-Asian ethnic minority…

Used the theory of work adjustment as a conceptual framework in evaluating multipotentiality, taken from the psychological literature on counseling intellectually gifted individuals. An examination of over 1,000 gifted students, assessed with the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the Study of Values, and J. L. Holland's 6 interest themes revealed little…

"The Second Century of Ability Testing: Some Predictions and Speculations" did not include predictions about the ability construct or the role of fundamental measurement principles. All commentators raised issues about the nature of the ability construct. The diverse viewpoints represented in these comments highlight well the complexity…

This paper addresses the sample invariant properties of four equating methods (Tucker and Levine linear equating, equipercentile equating through an anchor test, and three-parameter item response theory equating). Data from several national administrations of the Scholastic Aptitude Test served as the source of data for the study. Equating results…

Critical thinking has been conceptualized as a two-factor system in which critical thinking ability and critical thinking disposition combine to determine actual thinking performance. The present study used confirmatory factor analysis to investigate such a two-factor model empirically. One hundred ninety-eight Purdue University undergraduates…

Two methods of computing test equating coefficients under item response theory by the following authors are compared: (1) B. H. Loyd and H. D. Hoover (1980); and (2) M. L. Stocking and F. M. Lord (1983). Conditions under which the method of Stocking and Lord is preferable are described. (SLD)

A new approach to assessing unexpected differential item performance (item bias or item fairness) was developed and applied to the item responses of males and females to Scholastic Aptitude Test and Test of Standard Written English items administered operationally in December 1977. While the main body of the report describes the particulars of the…

Changes in the predictive validity of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) that have been observed in the University System of Georgia (USGA) over the past two decades were studied. Several analyses were performed using student data from 27 USGA schools to determine the effectiveness of the SAT in predicting freshman grades. National trends…

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, student-reported high school grades, and scores for four other Admissions Testing Program tests were correlated with freshman grade point average for 299,794 students at 198 colleges from the enrolling classes of 1978, 1981, and 1985. The purpose of the study was to determine whether observed changes in…

Standardization methodology was used to analyze omitted responses of Hispanic examinees on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Study or focal groups were 2,956 Mexican-Americans, 3,230 Puerto Ricans, and 278,009 White test-takers. Results indicate that both Mexican-Americans and Puerto Rican students omitted fewer items than White students of comparable…

Preliminary findings of the Differential Coursework Patterns (DCP) Project are reported. The Project uses assessment test scores and transcripts from samples of graduating college seniors to determine what coursework patterns were related to gains in the general learned abilities of the students. Random samples of graduating seniors have been…

This paper discusses whether or not revisions of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT) have created such significant differences between the two tests that a student could conceivably score significantly higher on one than the other. The SAT has been revised to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student…

A longitudinal study was designed in 1986 to investigate why some high-ability minority students follow through with their plans to enroll in college and major in mathematics, science, or engineering (MSE) fields, while others do not. Data came from three sources: (1) 1985 Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) files of a sample of minority students…