Krista Mattern

ACT, Inc. · Research

In 2020, the onset of COVID‐19 greatly restricted access to admissions testing in higher education and required innovative solutions and flexibility such as at home testing with remote proctoring, reducing testing time, pop‐up locations, and additional testing dates. Increased focus on social justice, diversity, and fairness continued to concern ad...

In 2018, 26 states administered a college admissions test to all public school juniors. Nearly half of those states proposed to use those scores as their academic achievement indicators for federal accountability under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA); many others are planning to use those scores for other accountability purposes. Accountabili...

Ensuring postsecondary readiness is a goal of K‐12 education, but it is unclear whether high school students should get different messages about the required levels of academic preparation depending on their postsecondary trajectories. This study estimated readiness benchmark scores on a college admissions test predictive of earning good grades in...

We examined summary indices of high school performance (coursework, grades, and test scores) based on the graded response model (GRM). The indices varied by inclusion of ACT test scores and whether high school courses were constrained to have the same difficulty and discrimination across groups of schools. The indices were examined with respect to...

We derived an index of high school academic rigor (HSAR) by optimizing the prediction of first‐year college GPA (FYGPA) based on high school courses taken, grades, and indicators of advanced coursework. Using a large data set and nominal parameterization of high school course outcomes, the HSAR index capitalizes on differential contributions across...

The percentage of students retaking college admissions tests is rising. Researchers and college admissions offices currently use a variety of methods for summarizing these multiple scores. Testing organizations such as ACT and the College Board, interested in validity evidence like correlations with first‐year grade point average (FYGPA), often use...

When Katie, Matt, and I first sat down to brainstorm ideas for a book prospectus on college and career readiness, we articulated our hopes for what another book on the topic could contribute to the literature. College and career readiness had been generating substantial interest and enthusiasm among educators, researchers, policymakers, and the gen...

Preparing Students for College and Careers addresses measurement and research issues related to college and career readiness. Educational reform efforts across the United States have increasingly taken aim at measuring and improving postsecondary readiness. These initiatives include developing new content standards, redesigning assessments and perf...

Preparing all students for postsecondary endeavors has become a top priority in national and state educational policy. To serve this goal, states regularly evaluate both the rigor of their academic standards and the extent to which their assessments and associated performance levels align with those standards. The goal is laudable: all states shoul...

Though higher education costs continue to rise, the returns of a college education are clear. College graduates experience lower levels of unemployment and higher annual wages, resulting in over $1 million more in lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Moreover, regions with higher proportions of college graduates benefit from lower crime ra...

The percentage of students retaking college admissions tests is rising (Harmston & Crouse, 2016). Researchers and college admissions offices currently use a variety of methods for summarizing these multiple scores. Testing companies, interested in validity evidence like correlations with college first-year grade-point averages (FYGPA), often use th...

In the context of college admissions, the current study examined whether differential prediction of first-year grade point average (FYGPA) by gender could be explained by an omitted variable problem—namely, academic discipline, or the amount of effort a student puts into schoolwork and the degree to which a student sees him/herself as hardworking a...

This chapter introduces the book by asking the question of whether “building better students” to improve the state of workforce readiness, which is currently experiencing a “skills gap,” is really a necessity. The chapter concludes that building better students is indeed necessary and introduces one theory for how society reached this point. This t...

The face of the workforce is rapidly changing. Technological advances mean that jobs previously serving as major drivers of the world’s economy are now fully automated. Furthermore, the automatization of many common work activities means that those currently entering the workforce require a different set of skills than those entering the workforce...

In this final concluding chapter, we synthesize the running themes across previous chapters in the book to arrive at a broad taxonomy and working definition of workforce readiness. Next, we look to the future of workforce readiness research by examining the global trends that will influence readiness over time, examining the impact both on workforc...

The findings of the Gaertner and McClarty article (2015) raised awareness on two extremely important topics related to college readiness: First, to effect change, we must measure students' progression towards college readiness throughout their K-12 career rather than just at the culmination of high school. Second, college readiness encompasses more...

Throughout the college retention literature, there is a recurring theme that students leave college for a variety of reasons making retention a difficult phenomenon to model. In the current study, cluster analysis techniques were employed to investigate whether multiple empirically based profiles of nonreturning students existed to more fully under...

This study explores the value in using the difference between a student's predicted first-year grade point average (FYGPA), based on high school grade point average and SAT scores, and their observed FYGPA, namely, their FYGPA residual, as a tool in identifying those at risk for leaving an institution. Specifically, this study examined whether coll...

The current study evaluated the relationship between various operationalizations of the Advanced Placement® (AP) exam and course information with first-year grade point average (FYGPA) in college to better understand the role of AP in college admission decisions. In particular, the incremental validity of the different AP variables, above relevant...

This study explored college distance from home, a possible contributing factor of transfer behavior. Because the distance between a student's home and college has been found to be related negatively to social integration and positively to homesickness (i.e., Brooks & DuBois, 1995; Fisher, Murray, & Frazer, 1985; Tognoli, 2003), a positive relations...

Research on the predictive bias of cognitive tests has generally shown (a) no slope effects and (b) small intercept effects, typically favoring the minority group. Aguinis, Culpepper, and Pierce (2010) simulated data and demonstrated that statistical artifacts may have led to a lack of power to detect slope differences and an overestimate of the si...

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between Advanced Placement (AP) exam participation and enrollment in a 4‐year postsecondary institution. A positive relationship was expected given that the primary purpose of offering AP courses is to allow students to engage in college‐level academic work while in high school, and p...

Despite the similarities that researchers note between the cognitive processes and knowledge involved in reading and writing, there are students who are much stronger readers than writers and those who are much stronger writers than readers. The addition of the writing section to the SAT provides an opportunity to examine whether certain groups of...

This study examined discrepant high school grade point average (HSGPA) and SAT performance as measured by the difference between a student’s standardized SAT composite score and standardized HSGPA. The SAT–HSGPA discrepancy measure was used to examine whether certain students are more likely to exhibit discrepant performance and in what direction....

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between academic self-beliefs (i.e., self-efficacy and degree aspirations) with various academic outcomes. Based on previous findings, it was hypothesized that students with more positive academic self-beliefs would perform better in school. The results supported prior research as students w...

Previous research on distributive justice judgments has come to the conclusion that these judgments are often formed based on an equity norm, or a self-serving, egoistic motive (e.g., Adams, 19651. Adams , J. S. ( 1965 ). Inequity in social exchange . Advances in Experimental Social Psychology , 62 , 335 – 343 . View all references; Greenberg, 198...

The purpose of the current study was to examine the academic consequences of attending an institution that is not considered an academic fit for a student. The results from the current study show that more able students perform better in college in terms of first-year GPA and retention to their second year regardless of the institution they attend....

The authors replicate Kruger and Dunning (1999) by demonstrating that the most unskilled students overestimate their skill level, whereas highly skilled students underestimate their skill level. Furthermore, this misestimation of skill is related to academic performance. Misestimation was positively related to first year college GPA, persistence to...

Admissions committee members often speak of fit as an important consideration during the admissions process; however, empirical evidence documenting its efficacy is scarce. The purpose of this research was to test the viability of student-institution fit as a significant predictor of college success, specifically first-year GPA, cumulative GPA, and...

The topic of distance from home is often discussed when students begin narrowing down colleges they want to apply to; however, there is a scarcity of research actually examining student behavior. The purpose of this study is to address this research gap using data based on a national sample of nearly one million students. Distance was computed in m...

This study focused on the relationship between students' Advanced Placement Program[R] (AP[R]) performance in AP English Language, Biology, Calculus, and U.S. History, and their subsequent college success. For each AP Exam studied, students were divided into three groups according to their AP Exam performance (no AP Exam taken, score of 1 or 2, and...

This study focused on the relationship between students' Advanced Placement (AP) English language performance and their subsequent college success. Targeted students were divided into three groups according to their AP English Language performance. Subsequent college success was measured by students' first-year college GPA, retention to the second...

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