Estimated Student Score Gain on the ACT COMP Exam [electronic resource] : Valid Tool for Institutional Assessment? / Trudy W. Banta and Others.
The higher education community needs measures of the value added to student development by the college experience. The American College Testing Program (ACT) provides a quick, easy method for estimating the extent of student growth in general education. An institution can test seniors with the ACT C...
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| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
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[S.l.] :
Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse,
1987.
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| Summary: | The higher education community needs measures of the value added to student development by the college experience. The American College Testing Program (ACT) provides a quick, easy method for estimating the extent of student growth in general education. An institution can test seniors with the ACT College Outcome Measures Project (COMP) exam, then subtract from the senior score an estimated freshman score obtained from a "concordance table" that is based on the known relationship (r = .70) between freshman ACT Assessment Composite score and freshman COMP total score. Studies using scores for 4,200 seniors and 2,100 freshmen tested during a two-year period at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) indicate that this method is not sufficiently reliable or valid to serve as the basis for making precise judgments about the relative quality of general education programs at various institutions, as at least one state coordinating agency for higher education has attempted to do. These studies show that estimates of student score gain on the COMP exam may be derived from systematically biased samples if not all students have ACT Assessment scores, and can be in error by as much as 60 percent. Moreover, estimated score gain bears a negative relationship to a number of institutional variables generally associated with good practice in higher education. Appendices contain contingent proportions for students with and without ACT scores on selected variables (1984-85 and 1985-86 UTK senior samples) and mean gain scores for selected variables (same periods and same sample). (Author/JAZ) |
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| Item Description: | ERIC Document Number: ED281892. ERIC Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (Washington, DC, April 20-24, 1987). Educational level discussed: Higher Education. |
| Physical Description: | 35 p. |
| Audience: | Researchers. |