Predicting Academic Achievement with the High School Placement Test

Abstract

The study reported here investigated the use of the High School Placement Test as a predictor of 9th grade academic achievement as measured by school grades. The sample was composed of 3,194 boys who were enrolled in an academic curriculum at 1 of the 10 randomly selected Diocesan high schools in Philadelphia. A multiple regression analysis and a canonical correlation analysis were performed using the subtest scores of the High School Placement Test as independent variables, and final 9th grade average, grades in English, social studies, Latin, general science, and algebra as the dependent variables. It was found that the Composite score of the High School Placement Test individually would have been as useful a predictor of final grades as either of the empirically determined predictor composites computed in performing the multiple regression analysis and the canonical correlation analysis.