The present study examined the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and comprehension on a multiple text assessment from the ACT test for college preparedness in which texts are available during question answering. Specifically, it was of interest whether differences in relations would be seen across different question types. Only…

Statewide testing with college admissions exams dates to 2001, when Colorado and Illinois introduced the practice. Such testing expanded in subsequent years, and beginning in 2017--2018, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allowed states to use a college admissions exam to meet accountability requirements for high schools. Some see this option…

This brief summarizes five benefits of schools providing the PreACT® to all their students. The PreACT 8/9 (an earlier version of the PreACT test that is more appropriate for students in grades 8 and 9) and PreACT assessments are designed to provide students with an indication of their educational progress in the context of preparing for the ACT®…

The current focus on assessing "college and career readiness" raises an empirical question: How do high school tests compare with college admissions tests in predicting performance in college? We explored this using data from the City University of New York and public colleges in Kentucky. These two systems differ in the choice of…

Prior research has shown the importance of the ACT score and high school GPA (HSGPA) in predicting college success. Early college success, as indicated by students' first-year college GPA (FYGPA), plays a pivotal role in later college success and timely degree completion (Demeter et al., 2022; Gershenfeld et al., 2016). The accurate prediction of…

Social and emotional (SE) skills are known to be linked to many important life outcomes, some of which fall in the academic domain. For example, meta-analytic analyses show that conscientiousness (a trait related to self-management, perseverance, and being organized and planful) accounts for 28% of the explained variance in academic performance…

Empirical research on the predictors of the edTPA scores is growing in education literature. However, to date minimal empirical literature exists on edTPA and physical education as a specific program area. State policymakers, educator preparation program administration, and physical education teacher education faculty may benefit from…

No significant body of research examines writing achievement and the specific skills and knowledge in the writing domain for postsecondary (college) students in the U.S., even though many at-risk students lack the prerequisite writing skills required to persist in their education. This paper addresses this gap through a novel…

For more than seventy-five years, standardized tests have been considered a vital tool for gauging students' readiness for college. However, few people--including students, parents, teachers, and policy makers--understand how tests like the SAT or ACT are used in admissions decisions. Once touted as the best way to compare students from diverse…

This paper documents the development of the Mosaic Readiness Index, a score that is reported for individuals who take the high school version of Mosaic by ACT®: Social Emotional Learning Assessment (hereafter referred to as the Mosaic assessment). The Mosaic Readiness Index is designed to predict high school academic outcomes--namely high school…

Social and emotional (SE) skills are known to be linked with many important life outcomes, including academic performance, performance on standardized college entrance exams, and college enrollment, although research on enrollment is limited. In this report, the authors present data points from a study that evaluated test-criterion validity…

Nationwide, Hispanic students continue to be underrepresented among students who complete a four-year degree in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016) and among workers in STEM fields. This discrepancy is a concern, especially in light of the projected growth in employment in STEM…

The optional ACT® writing test is designed to measure students' writing skills -- specifically, those skills emphasized and acquired in high school English classes and important for success in entry-level college composition courses. The test was first introduced in 2005, and in fall 2015, a number of enhancements to the former version were…

There has been a steady increase in college enrollment rates in recent decades, which has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in graduation rates. If this discrepancy is partly due to insufficient effort exerted by students, policies that aim at rewarding effort explicitly may succeed in increasing graduation rates. A unique and rich…

Self-referent performance beliefs can influence people's decision making related to long-term goals. Current measures of such beliefs, however, do not explicitly focus on the long-term aspects of goal achievement. We introduce a new concept, Long-Term Prospects (LTP), which is defined as the self-perception that one can maintain the continuous…