The High School and Beyond Cognitive Test: Evidence of Criterion-Related Validity

Abstract

The HS&B study is a national large scale longitudinal survey of a representative sample of approximately 58,000 high school students. The base year survey was conducted in the Spring of 1980 with subsequent follow-up studies in 1982, 1984, and 1986. Information was collected on over 1500 variables including achievement in six different areas measured by a 126-item cognitive test. Previous analyses of the psychometric properties of the cog9itive test indicated minimal evidence of validity and acceptable internal consistency reliability. The purpose of this study was to collect additional evidence for the validity of the cognitive test. Criterionrelated validity evidence was investigated by correlating sophomore and senior year cognitive test results with senior year self-reported grades, class standing, and ACT/SAT standardized test scores. With the exception of the civics subtest, sophomore and senior year subtest scores correlated highly (.64-.83) with senior year ACT/SAT standardized test scores and moderately well (.35-.53) with senior year self-reported grades and class standing.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Heyns, B. and Hilton, T. (1982). The cognitive tests for High School and Beyond: An assessment. Sociology of Education, 55, 89-102.

Jones, C. , Knight, S. , Butz, M. , Crawford, I. , and Stephenson, B. (1983). High School and Beyond transcript survey (1982): Data file user's manual. Report to the National Center for Educational Statistics by the National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago.

National Opinion Research Center . (1980). High School and Beyond: Information for users of base year (1980) data. Report to the National Center for Educational Statistics, University of Chicago.

National Opinion Research Center . (1985). Annotated bibliography of studies using data from High School and Beyond a national longitudinal study for the 1980's. Report to the National Center for Educational Statistics, University of Chicago.

Rock, D. , Hilton, T. , Pollack, J. , Ekstrom, R. , and Goertz, M. (1985). Psychometric analysis of the NLS and the High School and Beyond test batteries. Report to the National Center for Educational Statistics by Educational Testing Service.