Empowering Students to Improve Their College Admission Test Scores

Abstract

It is generally believed that a student's college admission test scores can influence his or her acceptance at a particular college or university. Parental concerns about the future careers and earnings of their offspring have also resulted in increased pressure on today's high school juniors and seniors to score well on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in order to have a better chance at that bright future. In what follows, the author reviews the research on the effectiveness of test preparation and commercial coaching programs for the purpose of improving college admission test scores. Emphasis will be placed on studies that focus on improving SAT scores. Educational Testing Service (ETS), the publisher of the SAT, did not recognize coaching as a means of increasing scores in the descriptive materials of the SAT until 1980-1981. That year a statement on coaching stated that such programs produced only minor gains of 10 points or less on the SAT-Verbal (SAT-V) and 15 points or less on the SAT-Mathematics (SAT-M). Now the ETS has abandoned its opposition to coaching and advises students to prepare for the SAT. And the College Board, the association of 2,600 colleges that use the SAT in admission of students, is now selling computer software on preparing for the SAT. There are, in theory, at least three ways to improve test scores: (1) genuine improvements in the abilities measured by the test, resulting in increases in test scores; (2) decreased anxiety, increased familiarity with format, pacing, and so forth, resulting in increased test scores that are more accurate assessments of ability; and (3) heightened test-taking skill (stratagems and answer-selection tricks), resulting in increased test scores that result in an inflated assessment of one's actual ability.