The Relation of Success in Certain Subjects in High School to Success in the Same Subjects in College

Abstract

One of the most warmly debated questions in academic circles today is the question of the type of tests to be used to determine the fitness of applicants for admission to college. The value of any test lies in the accuracy with which it can predict the success of the applicant in college work. Much patient research has therefore been devoted to the task of determining the predictive value of the various types of tests now in common use, and the study here reported is an effort to contribute something, small though it be, to that enterprise. It is concerned with only one of the several kinds of tests in common use for determining fitness for college work, namely, the school record, and with only one aspect of that record. It deals with the correlation of success in certain groups of subjects in high school with success in the same groups of subjects in college. The general correlation between high-school and college marks, particularly those of the Freshman year in college, has been determined in other investigations, but the extent to which success in certain groups of subjects in high school is predictive of success in the same groups of subjects in college is a question worthy of careful study. How valuable studies in this field might be, provided they could be made sufficiently thoroughgoing and extensive, can readily be imagined. If it could be determined that success in certain subjects in high school is a fairly certain prediction of success in the same subjects in college, much fumbling might be avoided on the part of the individual student in the selection of a field for specialization and perhaps even in the selection of a suitable institution. If, on the other hand, no correlation or a low correlation is shown, the result may indicate either the need for better adjustment of teaching