Previous studies have shown that students who intend to major in education have low SAT and ACT scores. Further, among those students who intended to major, those who do major have even lower average scores. This study also shows that those students who intend to major in education have lower average high school and college grade point averages.…

Characteristics that might help predict student prominence within a medical school class were studied. The prominent student is one who is highly visible and extensively involved in key relationships with other students. This prominence is expected to provide the student with greater access to information and resources held by classmates. A total…

The influence of financial aid on college student persistence was studied using causal modeling. The study population was 227 full-time freshmen, who enrolled in fall 1982 at a liberal arts college at a large commuter institution. All the students received financial aid. The model, which included background and academic variables, accounted for…

The study explored the qualifications of learning-disabled college students by examining the academic performance (first year grade point average--GPA) of 179 learning-disabled and 249 nonlearning-disabled students classified by two objective admission criteria--either Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or high-school class rank. Overall, the scores…

This study sought to determine which, if any, of the possible predictor variables based on relationships with college performance available at freshman entry would prove useful in selecting students for admission. A study of the relationships between four college performance variables and eight admission variables was conducted using seven…

The first-year performance of freshmen between 1987 and 1992 was investigated for evidence of grade inflation. Grade inflation is defined as "when a grade is viewed as being less rigorous than it ought to be". Performance data were analyzed for fall semester admissions of full-time, first-time freshmen at the University of Missouri…

In this paper the bootstrap technique was applied to the evaluation of potential predictive bias for different ethnic groups using the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and high school ranks to predict college grade point averages (GPAs). Data of three ethnic groups were used; the total number of subjects was close to 5,000. Both conventional…

A study conducted in a newly desegregated school system during its first year of reorganization revealed that black students were being suspended at a substantially higher rate than white students. The study also indicated that suspension rates were disproportionately high for males, for students from families receiving Aid to Families with…

Teaching certification graduates in the years 1982 and 1983 performed as well as or better than non-teaching certification graduates of the same years when measured by either the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) or the upper division major grade point average (UGPA). However, teaching certification graduates were one or two points weaker than…

A study examined the general achievement and aptitude of prospective teachers at the University of Minnesota's College of Education. Test scores were examined over time, against majors in other professional schools in the same institution, as well as across different education majors. The specific variables investigated included subtests of the…

Changing patterns in how students apply to colleges and universities have affected the way institutional researchers project enrollment. This paper explores the usefulness of adding student prematriculation activities (i.e., commitment to enroll, registration patterns, and academic ability). Trends in prematriculation activity identified include…

This paper demonstrates a grade server that allows college students to access their grades over the Internet from the instructor's home page. Using a CGI (common gateway interface) program written in Visual Basic, the grades are read directly from an Excel spreadsheet and presented to the requester after he/she enters a password. The grade for…

Development of new scales from test items usually requires several hundred cases in each of the defined groups. Application of multivariate techniques to existing test scales also encounters such problems as multicolinearity, combining ipsative with normative measures and ordinal with equal interval scales, differential prediction, and…

The sample for this study included 496 students admitted to a large midwestern university through the special admissions program. Validity coefficients of the Descriptive Tests of Language Skills (DTLS) subtests, the Academic Tests of the ACT Assessment Program (ACT), and high school percentile rank were calculated with cumulative grade point…

A recent decline in the ability to predict first-year grade point average using the traditional regression analyses incorporating Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) and high school rank as predictors fostered an investigation of the effectiveness of alternative procedures to predict academic success. Four procedures were investigated and compared,…