The Predictive Validity of the National Teacher Examinations Used for Admission to Teacher Education Programs

Abstract

This research investigates previous findings which report that performance on the National Teacher Examinations (NTE) tests of Communication Skills (CS) and General Knowledge (GK) used for teacher education admissions was not related to performance in teacher education course work. Administrative data were collected for 1,143 graduates of teacher education programs, including various test scores and grade point averages. The CS and GK scores were not found to be strongly enough related to performance in teacher education programs, as measured by grade point average, to merit their use as requirements for admission. The tests are useful for predicting performance on the NTE test of Professional Knowledge, the state certification examination. Cross-validation of prior regression models showed these relationships to be stable. The authors point out policy implications of the study.