New study questions validity of ACT college entrance exam

For those who didn't score well on the science section of the ACT college entrance exam, there may be some good news.

A study released this month says that while the English and math sections of the ACT are "highly predictive of positive college outcomes," the science and reading sections "provide little or no additional predictive power."

The study by the National Bureau of Economic Research is titled "Improving College Performance and Retention the Easy Way: Unpacking the ACT Exam." It suggests colleges could use the best predictors of college success, the ACT English and math scores, to curb the college dropout rate. Just 35 percent of students who started their post-secondary degree in 2003 had finished within the following six years.

"For example, our model predicts that a student who gets an ACT composite score of 24 by getting a 26 each on the reading and science tests and a 22 each on the mathematics and English tests is 59 percent more likely to be a first-year dropout and 43 percent more likely to drop out by the third year of college, relative to a student who gets the same ACT composite score of 24, but with a 26 each on the mathematics and English tests and a 22 each on the reading and science tests," the study reported.

The interim president of the ACT's education division told Education Week "all four subject areas are important in college and the composite score represents the best overall readiness predictor."

He also said most students have a relatively similar score on all tests, but colleges should note when that is not the case. He also acknowledged the ACT has known "for a long time" that English and math skills are strong predictors of success in college.

Yet almost all colleges simply look at the composite score of all four sections of the ACT, the study reported. The authors of the study suggest this is either because college admission offices don't know the predictive quality of each of the sections or that they have strong incentives to admit students with higher overall scores — "perhaps due to highly publicized external rankings such as those compiled by the U.S. News & World Report, which incorporate students' entrance exam scores," the paper stated.

"There are many ways to improve the higher education system, but it often seems that complex problems (such as low college retention rates) require complex solutions," the authors wrote. "We argue in this case that a better understanding of how the ACT predicts future performance could lead to easily implementable, low-cost solutions that can yield potentially large benefits."

In 2010, the ACT reported that just under one in four students who took the college entrance exam met all four college readiness benchmarks, yet 66 percent of students met the English college readiness benchmark and 43 percent met the math benchmark.

Utah is currently looking at paying for all high school students in the state to take the ACT exam once. Based on their scores, students could receive a "College and Career Ready Diploma," according to an article in the Deseret News last week.

The other popular college entrance exam, the SAT, has also been questioned as far as validity goes, according to a report conducted by the College Board in 2008.

EMAIL: slenz@desnews.com