The Official ACT® Self-Paced Course, Powered by Kaplan® is a test preparation solution in partnership between Kaplan and ACT. In April of 2022, the authors surveyed users of the self-paced course who took the ACT test between August 2020 and February 2022 to better understand: (1) ways the solution helped them when they took the ACT; (2) what…

This study aims to characterize how students enrolled in a test preparation product, ACT® Online Test Prep (AOP), use that product. Following Geiser (2012), Masyn (2013), and Morin (2016), the authors use latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify students' engagement profiles using four engagement measures: activity, time, practice ACT score, and…

Debilitating test anxiety is a general threat to validity if it biases assessment scores. Moreover, if bias differs between demographic groups, anxiety also raises concerns about test fairness. This study applied structural equation modeling to investigate possible measurement bias due to anxiety on the ACT® assessment and relationships among…

In this report, the authors examined the relationship between social and emotional (SE) skills, school climate, educator variables, and educator burnout. Mosaic Educator, an assessment designed for teachers and school staff, was completed by a sample of educators in several regions of the country during the spring of 2022. This assessment measured…

Social and emotional (SE) skills are "individual capacities that (a) are manifested in consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, (b) can be developed through formal and informal learning experiences, and (c) influence important socioeconomic outcomes throughout the individual's life" (Organisation for Economic…

The research summarized in this paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on student performance on the ACT[TM] test. The author compares scores during the three years preceding the pandemic (2018, 2019, and early 2020) to scores in 2021 and 2022 while accounting for changes in the tested population across years. For students tested in…

This study investigated the moderating roles of motivation, social engagement, and self-regulation in predicting academic achievement in grades 11-12 for 3,281 7th-9th graders. Standardized assessments of college readiness (ACT® Explore and the ACT® test) and student self-report measures of social emotional learning factors (ACT® Engage® Grades…

A random sample of students who took the ACT test in either April or June of 2016 were invited to participate in an online survey via an email invitation (N = 35,0471). To study whether mailing post card invitations to students improves response rates, a portion of these test-takers were randomly assigned to be sent a post card. In addition,…

In recent ACT mode comparability studies, students testing on laptop or desktop computers earned slightly higher scores on average than students who tested on paper, especially on the ACT® reading and English tests (Li et al., 2017). Equating procedures adjust for such "mode effects" to make ACT scores comparable regardless of testing…

Social and emotional (SE) skills are related to many positive outcomes, including degree attainment, improved academic performance, and increased life satisfaction, and are often taught through social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. A positive school climate is important for students' social and emotional wellness and ability to learn. For…

For many years, ACT has studied the relationships between high school students' educational experiences and successful educational outcomes, such as college persistence and graduation. As ACT continues this work, there are opportunities to learn about students' other experiences as well, including negative ones that could hinder academic…

ACT is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help people achieve education and workplace success. To help fulfill that mission, ACT offers school-day testing programs that provide all students with state- or district-funded access to its college readiness and admissions assessment, removing barriers to testing and opening doors to…

This study employs hierarchal linear modeling to examine whether high school grade inflation occurred between 2010 and 2021, including for students who were tested during the pandemic. The study does so while simultaneously accounting for student and school characteristics. This is the first study, to the current authors' knowledge, that makes use…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruptions to the educational system in Nebraska and across the world. At the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, schools in Nebraska were forced to replace on-site instruction with virtual instruction. During the 2020-2021 academic year, many students learned online or under hybrid learning formats.…

Three mode comparability studies were conducted on the following Saturday national ACT test dates: October 26, 2019, December 14, 2019, and February 8, 2020. The primary goal of these studies was to evaluate whether ACT scores exhibited mode effects between paper and online testing that would necessitate statistical adjustments to the online…