ENGLISH PROFICIENCY AND DIFFERENCES AMONG RACIAL AND ETHNIC GROUPS IN MEAN SAT^® AND GRE^® SCORES: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Although limited proficiency in the language of a test is known to depress aptitude test scores, the changes that occur as proficiency rises over time have been less well studied. The objective here is to contrast longitudinal changes in test performance for persons who indicated that English was (EBL) or was not their best language (ENBL). Analyses were based on a sample of U.S. citizens and permanent residents (N=65,987 EBL and N=1,592 ENBL); each individual had taken both the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT)1 and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) General Test some years later. The distance in verbal mean scores between the EBL non‐Hispanic White group and ENBL groups (such as, non‐Hispanic White, Asian‐American, Black, Puerto Rican, other Hispanic) grew closer by 0.21 to 0.48 standard deviation units from the taking of the SAT to the taking of the GRE. These findings have implications for the interpretation of test scores in longitudinal studies of linguistic minorities and for selective admissions of students with limited proficiency in English.

Latinos in the United States in 2000

“…Two measures of educational achievement are SAT and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores, the two most commonly used standardized tests for college and graduate school admissions (Pennock-Roman, 1999). Table 23 presents a longitudinal analysis of raw scale scores of Latino groups on the GRE and the SAT over an approximately 6-year period.…”

An examination of factors contributing to a reduction in subgroup differences on a constructed-response paper-and-pencil test of scholastic achievement.

“…Nevertheless, its potential value for researchers and practitioners lies in providing an option for reducing subgroup differences in the testing of specified constructs of interest, such as ability, while retaining the advantages of paper-and-pencil tests. We also acknowledge that the magnitude of the multiple-choice subgroup difference was higher than that reported elsewhere for college admissions tests (i.e., standardized differences ranging from 1.24 to 1.42; Oswald, Schmitt, Kim, Ramsay, & Gillespie, 2004;Pennock-Roma ´n, 1999). As such, there may have been selection bias in the items we selected for the present study.…”

The Three‐option Format for Knowledge and Ability Multiple‐choice Tests: A case for why it should be more commonly used in personnel testing

“…We acknowledge that the magnitude of the race-based subgroup differences from Study 1 was slightly higher than those reported elsewhere for college admissions tests (i.e., standardized differences ranging from 1.24 to 1.42; Oswald, Schmitt, Kim, Ramsay, & Gillespie, 2004;Pennock-Román, 1999). As such, there may have been selection bias in the items we chose for the present study.…”