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Predicting First Year College Academic Success of Test-Anxious Students:�Cognitive versus Non-Cognitive Assessments

Brianna Malinowski

Dr. Jean Kirnan

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History of the SAT

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  • Regardless of educational & economic privilege
    • Low fee, standardized opportunity to express knowledge
  • Since 1927, number of SAT test-takers increased by 20,000%

(That you all know and love)

(“History,” n.d.)

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Issues surrounding the SAT

  • SAT only explains 12-13% variance of FYGPA.
  • Correlation with SES
    • $20,000 had mean scores of 436 for reading, 459 for math, and 429 for writing
    • $200,000 had mean scores of 569 for reading, 588 for math, 565 for writing
  • Females in 2014 scored 31 points lower than males on the math section.
  • Racial differences…

Is the SAT fair?

(Zwick, 2013)

(“SAT percentile,” 2014)

(Geiser & Santelices, 2007)

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2014 Racial Differences in SAT Scores

Adapted from:

SAT percentile ranks for 2014 college-bound seniors. (2014, January 1). Retrieved March 14, 2015, fromhttps://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-percentile-ranks-gender-ethnicity-2014.pdf

Ethnicity

Reading

Writing

Math

African American/Black

431

418

429

Mexican/ Mexican American

450

443

461

White/Caucasian

529

513

534

Asian/Pacific Islander

523

530

598

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Why not use HSGPA to accept students?

  • Not nationally standardized
  • Varying difficulty levels of schools
  • Inclusion of gym, driver’s ed, etc.
  • Weighting of AP or honors courses

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Non-Cognitive Assessments

  • What is a non-cognitive factor?
    • Personality traits, learning styles, motivation levels, psychosocial influences, and interests
    • Not direct measures of intelligence, but that are often found to be associated with success in college
  • Examples:
    • Big Five personality were found to explain 15% of the variance in college exam scores of British students (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2003).
    • Non-cognitive measures outside of the Big Five explained 20% of the variance in undergraduate GPA, with the highest predictors of academic success being academic self-efficacy and minimum test grade goals (Richardson et al., 2012)
    • Higher level of grit in black males was correlated with higher grades in college (Strayhorn, 2014)
  • More fair way to predict success than SAT!

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Non-Cognitive Measures and Test Anxious Students

  • If non-cog measures can better predict academic success for groups that the SAT are biased against (females, minorities, low SES), perhaps they can better predict academic success for another group that the SAT is biased against:

Test-Anxious Students!

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The PASS

  • Developed by the TAP Lab, led by Dr. Kirnan
  • 62-item non-cog measure to predict first year GPA of TCNJ students
  • Given during Welcome Week

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What does the PASS look like?

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Hypotheses

  • H1: SAT scores of highly test anxious students will be lower than SAT scores of students with low test anxiety.
  • H2: Scores on a non-cognitive measure of college preparedness (PASS) will correlate positively with first year college GPA more strongly than SAT scores will correlate with first year college GPA.
  • H3: Specifically, scores on a non-cognitive measure of college preparedness (PASS) will yield a stronger correlation with first year college GPA for students with high test anxiety than they will for students with low test anxiety.

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Method/Materials

  • 989 students who successfully completed the PASS were sent

anxiety measures in November 2014.

    • Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale

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  • 452 anxiety measure responses received
  • 240 students successfully completed both PASS and anxiety measure
  • SAT scores and GPA were received from the Center for Institutional Effectiveness at TCNJ and were matched to participants based on Paws ID numbers.

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Additional Questions

Additional Questions

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Results

  • Low anxious scored sig. higher on math, verbal, and combined SAT than moderate and high anxious
  • No sig. difference between scores of moderate and high anxiety
  • No sig. difference among writing scores of all anxiety levels

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Results

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  • Students with high test anxiety received significantly lower SAT scores than students with low test anxiety
      • Except on writing scores

Support of Hypothesis 1

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Results

  • Low test anxiety, PASS and SAT are not sig. different
  • High test anxiety, PASS is stronger predictor than SAT
  • All participants, PASS is stronger predictor than SAT

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Results

  • For all students, PASS is a stronger predictor of FYGPA than the SAT.
  • Specifically, the PASS is a better predictor of FYGPA for highly test anxious students than it is for students with low test anxiety.

Support of Hypotheses 2 & 3

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Other Findings

  • 71.3% claimed that their anxiety level for the SAT was either “higher” or “much higher” than their typical anxiety towards school exams.
  • The specific aspects contributing to this high test anxiety predominantly included:
    • Time restraints of the SAT (33.8% of students)
    • Importance of the SAT scores to college admissions (62.5% of students.)
  • 84.2% of participants rated the importance of their SAT scores as a 4 or 5 on a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5.

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Discussion

  • Limitations
    • Restriction of range of SAT scores at TCNJ
    • Completion of measures not standardized
    • 57% female
  • PASS is a better predictor of FYGPA than the SAT for all participants, especially students with high test anxiety (who are at a disadvantage on the SAT)
  • Perhaps, non-cognitive measures should be used as part of the college admissions process

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Findings and Limitations

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