9486 in the collection
Test Looking to Reveal Psychological Insights
Tell Raymond Ting a few key things about a student's personal life, and he can predict with surprising accuracy whether that teen will succeed in college. Tell him only the student's score on the SAT college-entrance exam, and he is reduced to taking a good guess.
That's one reason Ting, an associate professor in education research at N.C. State University, is intrigued by the results of an experimental test released this month by researchers at Yale University.
The results suggest that a test providing psychological insights into a student could significantly improve a school's ability to predict grade point averages while potentially reducing racial disparities among those admitted.
"People have become far more interested in this type of thing as talk has increased about alternatives to the SAT," Ting said. "N.C. State is part of a five-school consortium that is researching very similar questions."
Known as the Rainbow Project, the exam designed by Yale researchers is an effort to measure intelligence in a much broader way than the math and verbal sections of the SAT.
About 1,000 students in 13 colleges and two high schools took the first phase of the test, which gauges creative intelligence, practical intelligence and analytical intelligence, lead researcher Robert Sternberg said.
A student's creative intelligence was tested, for example, by providing only the titles to several short stories such as "A Fifth Chance" or "It's Moving Backwards." The students then wrote a short story to fit the titles. They also were shown cartoons and asked to write captions.
Practical intelligence was gauged by asking students to rate the importance of certain school activities such as taking comprehensive notes or consistent class attendance. Students' analytical skills were probed by asking them to numerically rank the best solutions to difficult situations.
"The first phase of the study was very small, but it was a statistical and practical success," Sternberg said. "The analysis shows that when the results were used together with the SAT, it is twice as likely to successfully predict student success."
The Rainbow Project is financed by the College Board, which also produces the SAT . But the new test is not intended to replace the SAT.
Sternberg said it is too early to know whether the project will lead to another exam for those entering college. A second phase of the research will include 5,000 to 10,000 students to see whether the results of the first phase are replicated. At least one more large-scale trial would be needed after that.
What schools are doing
College officials say knowing more about students before they are accepted is a priority that most schools are already pursuing on their own.
Ting hopes to find out soon whether a consortium of NCSU, Appalachian State University, N.C. A&T, UNC-Pembroke and the University of Maryland will be awarded a grant of up to $400,000 from the U.S. Department of Education to pursue work similar to the Rainbow Project.
Since the fall of 2000, NCSU has been asking incoming freshmen to fill out a short survey to get a better understanding of such topics as a student's self-image, family support system, long-term goals and opportunities to learn outside of a classroom.
Those answers are linked to students' classroom performance over time, giving researchers an idea of what personal qualities provide the strongest indication of student success.
Ting said the group of five schools that applied for the federal grant hopes to survey 5,000 students a year to quickly build its database.
College students interviewed last week seemed generally willing to take one more exam before college if it helped reduce the feeling that selecting the right institution is little more than an educated guess.
"I would feel more comfortable if I thought they knew more about me as a person," said Andrea Andrason, a sophomore at NCSU who graduated from Sanderson High School in Raleigh.
Admission directors, however, weren't as quick to embrace the idea of yet another standardized test for high school seniors.
"I heard the presentation by Dr. Sternberg, and my first thought was 'We already do that'," said Jerry Lucido, admissions director at UNC-Chapel Hill.
"We go to great lengths to read all the files and essays to make sure we are making the right choice. I'm not sure another test would be all that helpful."
Christoph Guttentag, admissions director at Duke University, agreed with Lucido that an exam that only augments the SAT could be a tough sell among college officials.
"More information is always better, but you are looking for quality information," Guttentag said.
At Duke, a system has evolved over time that couples sophisticated research with a longtime practice of informal rating scales that are applied to various parts of a student's application.
In any given application, for example, admissions officials are likely to rate a student's essay, letters of recommendation, extracurricular activities, high school grades and many other factors.
The ratings are then provided to those who conduct institutional research for the university to determine which qualities are most likely to predict success and how heavily those qualities should be weighted.
"We received more than 16,000 applications last year, and out of that number, maybe 15,000 could have been successful at Duke," Guttentag said. "So selecting the right mix has become far more sophisticated over the years. And that is where a test like the one being developed at Yale might have some potential."
But ultimately, no test is going to produce a perfect mix because it is impossible to predict how individual students are going to react to their new campus, Guttentag said.
"You have to remember that at the end of the process these are students we're admitting, not test results."
— Tim Simmons
Test aims for broader measure
News Observer
2003-08-25
http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2810032p-2597461c.html
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
[1] 2 3 4 5 6 Next >> Last >>
