Placement tests in the guidance program of college students

Abstract

I. Need for Guidance of Students in Georgia Colleges. Colleges in Georgia like those in other southern states and in many other regions are facing two serious problems that seem to be conflicting: the necessity of raising standards of scholarship for those who plan to enter the professions, especially teaching; and the need for adapting the college curriculum so that it will function for those whose abilities and preparation for college work are so limited that any modification of the curriculum to meet their needs is likely to lower present standards of scholarship. The most widely attempted solution to these conflicting problems has been to differentiate the curriculum of the junior college from that of the senior college by emphasizing general education and special vocational courses for trades and industries at the junior college level and raising the standard of scholarship necessary for work in the senior college. Those colleges and universities that have attempted such an adaptation of the curriculum have become convinced that it can work effectively only if it is centered around a program of guidance which enables individual students to evaluate their abilities and preparation in relation to the training necessary for the work they have chosen to do. There are two conditions of inequality in standards of scholarship in Georgia high schools which make a guidance program for students in Georgia colleges necessary in order to prevent large numbers of freshmen from dropping out of college before the end of the first year because of confusion and frustration resulting from a failure to do the work of their freshman courses successfully. There are a few large city high schools in the state that have twelve grades instead of eleven. Edwards has shown by an analysis of placement test scores made by freshmen at the University of Georgia that the graduates.of the twelveyear high schools are better prepared for college than those from high schools having only eleven grades (4). From an analysis of scores made on the Thurstone Psychological Examination by students at G. S. C. W., the writer found that those students who have had two or more years of training in rural schools made lower scores on this test than those graduating from high schools in the larger towns and cities.1 Many of the rural high schools have been consolidated recently and their standards of scholarship are low in comparison with those of other high schools in the state.