Recently Burkholder "et al." argued that class normalized gains over the entire population of courses is approximated by a Cauchy distribution, not by a normal distribution, and therefore should not be used to compare different classes because means and standard deviations cannot be calculated. They argued that multiple linear regression…

A distinction is made between scores as measures of a construct and predictions of a criterion or outcome variable. The interpretation attached to predictions of criteria, such as job performance or college grade point average (GPA), differs from that attached to scores that are measures of a construct, such as reading proficiency or knowledge…

When students with the capacity to succeed in a 4-year college do not take a college admission test, this represents a potential loss of opportunity for students and colleges alike. However, the costs of testing--both pecuniary and nonpecuniary--may exceed the benefits for students who lack the interest in or qualifications for college attendance.…

Throughout the college retention literature, there is a recurring theme that students leave college for a variety of reasons making retention a difficult phenomenon to model. In the current study, cluster analysis techniques were employed to investigate whether multiple empirically based profiles of nonreturning students existed to more fully…

The continued accumulation of validity evidence for the intended uses of educational assessment scores is critical to ensure that inferences made using the scores are sound. To that end, the College Board has continued to collect college outcome data to evaluate the relationship between SAT® scores and college success. This report provides updated…

A recurrent trend in higher education research has been to identify additional predictors of college success beyond the traditional measures of high school grade point average (HSGPA) and standardized test scores, given that a large percentage of unaccounted variance in college performance remains. A recent study by Wyatt, Wiley, Camara, and…

The low number of college graduates with science degrees--particularly among underrepresented minorities--is of growing concern. We examine differences across universities in graduating students in different fields. Using student-level data on the University of California system during a period in which racial preferences were in place, we show…

The purpose of this paper is to provide information about how students' scores change when they retake the PSAT/NMSQT as juniors or take the SAT in the spring after they take the PSAT/NMSQT as juniors. Two research questions guided this study and motivated the approach for analysis of the data: How do scores change for students who took the…

This quantitative analysis of published results on the effect of coaching on Scholastic Aptitude Test scores differs from previous studies by separating out the within-study sampling error from the variation in coaching effectiveness. The authors conclude that the size of the positive effect seems too small to be practically important. (Author/SK)

This research examines the effect of increased testing time by comparing the four performance indices of randomly equivalent examinee subpopulations on sections of similar content and difficulty administered at different times on three SAT administrations. A variety of analyses were used in this study and found no evidence that the current SAT…

An evolved form of the Edwards and Beckworth (1989) model for probability selection for Scholastic Achievement Test takers using truncated normal distributions is presented. It is shown that the arguments of Holland and Wainer are not sufficient to reject this model. (SLD)

Meta-analysis of research on a topic may exclude reports that do not present their results in a statistical form amendable to summarizing procedures used. This article illustrates how researchers can consider this aspect in computing statistics from their data. An illustration of how that can sometimes be done is presented. (Author/JAZ)

Data from the College Board Validity Study Service show that the average multiple correlation of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) with college grades peaked in 1974 and then tended to decline. Data from other sources also estimate a small average decline from 1974 to 1985. This study documented changes in the SAT and related these changes to…

This report provides those who need to interpret scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the College Board Achievement Tests with information about college-bound seniors who have taken these tests. In addition, the report documents changes over time in the characteristics of students taking the tests. Information is based on the latest…

This report consists almost entirely of tables that provide mean scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and College Board Achievement Tests for New York high school seniors in 1991 and summarize information that students have provided about their high school academic achievement and their personal backgrounds. Tables are based on the latest…