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.…

The SAT is a national college entrance examination offered by the College Board and consists of three parts: Mathematics, Critical Reading, and Writing. The top score for each part is 800, for a total possible score of 2400. Colleges use SAT scores, in conjunction with other tools, to measure students' potential for success at the postsecondary…

The 2015-2016 school year marks the first administration of the redesigned PSAT, which is composed of two sections: (1) Evidence-based Reading and Writing (EBRW) and (2) Math. This memorandum presents results of 2015-2016 Grade 10 PSAT participation and performance of Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) students. Among 10,859 MCPS first-time…

With the rise in online and hybrid courses at the post-secondary level, many institutions are offering various online learning readiness assessments to students who are considering these instructional formats. Following a discussion of the characteristics often attributed to successful online learners, as well as a review of a sample of the…

Professional Development Engagement (PDE) is defined as "the level of undergraduate engagement in professional development." It reflects career-related work preparation for "life after college" and is a distinct externally-focused component of student engagement (SE). The increased college retention and subsequent job placement…

Even when they have good language skills, many children with hearing loss lag several years behind hearing children in the ability to grasp beliefs of others. The researchers sought to determine whether this lag results from difficulty with the verbal demands of tasks or from conceptual delays. The researchers related children's performance on a…

The Modern Language Aptitude Test (Paper-and-Pencil Version, henceforth, the MLAT) measures "an individual's ability to learn a foreign language." It targets English-speaking adults (over Grade 9) who are literate. The test has only one form, which has not changed since it was first published by the Psychological Corporation in 1959. The test can…

In Philip Pullman's dark matter sci-fi trilogy, there is a golden compass that in the hands of the right person is predictively powerful; the same was supposed to be true of the SAT/ACT--the statistically indistinguishable standardized tests for college admissions. They were intended to be reliable mechanisms for identifying future trajectories,…

Many educators comfortably embrace the myth that the military will enlist any and all high school graduates who are interested. However, a new analysis from The Education Trust reports that too many of the nation's high school graduates have not been adequately prepared to serve in the U.S. Army. In "Shut Out of the Military," the…

This study validated the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) on a sample of 273 private university students in Lebanon. For that purpose, evidence for construct validation was investigated through identifying the test's factor structure and subscale total correlations, in addition to differences in scores by gender, different levels,…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether racial and ethnic-related stressors were associated with overall levels of perceived stress and academic performance among African American students at a historically Black college and university (HBCU). Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test racial and ethnic-related stressors…

This article presents questions and answers about ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks. ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks are the minimum ACT test scores required for students to have a high probability of success in credit-bearing college courses--English Composition, social sciences courses, College Algebra, or Biology. Colleges can use the…

First- and higher-order factor analyses are explained from a conceptual rather than a mathematical perspective. A case is made for performing higher-order factor analysis when factors are theoretically related. Actual scores of 301 children on 24 ability measures are used to demonstrate interpretation of second-order factors using the FORTRAN…

Univariate and multivariate corrections for range restriction were compared using scores of 147,288 Navy applicants on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Composite validities were corrected using the univariate and multivariate formulas. In general, multivariate corrections were more accurate than univariate corrections. This accuracy…

One-hundred seventy-five students enrolled in either a traditional classroom lecture section of General Psychology or in an online section of the same course were compared on exam performance. When covariates of high school grade point average and SAT composite scores were entered into the analysis, students enrolled in the classroom based lecture…