Counselor and Student Estimates of Grades as Predictors of Academic Achievement

Abstract

Traditionally, academic achievement in college has beenpredicted by correlating test scores and/or high school grades with first semester grade point averages. With the rise in popularity of research on the self-concept variable, consideration has been given to the possibility of using student self estimates and/or counselor estimates as predictors of grades. The rationale for this approach seems to be that in addition to information about test scores, counselors and students can take advantage of relevant but essentially unmeasurable variables in their prediction of grades. The few studies utilizing student and counselor estimates of grades have yielded interesting but con flicting results. For example, Young (7) obtained a correlation of . 71 between student estimates of grades and actual grades. In the same study, the correlation for counselor estimates with grades was .68. On the other hand, Budd (1) found a very high (. 76) correlation between counselor estimates and actual grades but a low (. 29) correlation between student estimates and grades. Freehill (2) also re ported a low (. 23) correlation of student estimates with grades earned at the end of the first semester in college. In a study of student aspirations at the beginning of college, Matteson(3) obtained a signif icant association between predicted and o b t ained grade point averages. Finally, Robertson (4) com pared student estimates with counselor estimates of freshman grades and found a statistically significant agreement between the two sets of predictions. In view of the promising but inconsistent find ings, the present study was under taken with the hope of providing some definitive conclusions. Students attending a precollege testing and c o uns eling pro gram were asked to predict their first semester grades both before and after the precollege program. Counselors were asked to predict the grades for each student they counseled. The two sets of pre dictions were then compared with grades received at the end of the fall semester. Procedure