Relative Effectiveness of the California Achievement Tests in Comparison With the Act Assessment, College Board Scholastic Aptitude Test, and High School Grade Point Average in Predicting College Grade Point Average

Abstract

Studied was the relative effectiveness of the. California Achievement Tests (CAT), the ACT Assessment (Academic Tests) of the American College Testing Program (ACT), the College Board Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), and high school grade point average (GPA) in predicting college freshman GPA. The incremental and differential incremental effectiveness of the CAT, ACT, and SAT in addition to high school GPA were also studied. Although high school GPA was the best single predictor, the CAT was as effective a predictor as was the ACT or the SAT. Use of either the ACT, SAT, or CAT resulted in an 18.47% increase in predictive etBciency over that obtained by using high school GPA alone. As the increase in predictive efficiency was very nearly the same (within rounding error) for the three tests (ACT, SAT, and CAT), they failed to demonstrate differential incremental validity.