The Accuracy of Self-Reported High School Course and Grade Information

A C T Research Report Series87-1The Accuracy of Self-Reported High School Course and Grade InformationMichael J. ValigaNovember 1986 For additional copies write: ACT Research Report Series P.O. Box 168 Iowa City, Iowa 52243©1987 by The American College Testing Program. All rights reserved. The Accuracy of Self-Reported High School Course and Grade InformationMichael J. Valiga ABSTRACTIn order to examine the accuracy with which secondary school, students report their high school courses and grades, self-reported course and grade information for 21 ''academic1' high school courses was obtained from 1,100 students at the time they registered for the ACT Assessment. This informa­tion was compared with corresponding data from the students’ high school transcripts. In nearly 95% of the cases, the courses the students reported as having taken matched the information from the transcripts. The correlation between the student-reported grades and transcript grades (across all indi­viduals and types of courses) was .87. Given this degree of accuracy, several potential uses of the student-reported information are presented and discussed. THE ACCURACY OF SELF-REPORTED HIGH SCHOOL COURSE AND GRADE INFORMATIONDuring recent years, officials at colleges and universities have become increa­singly interested in the high school course-taking patterns of their prospective and entering students. Information related to high school preparation has been heavily used in the college admissions process and for course placement decisions. Insti­tutions have also used such information to plan appropriate curricular offerings for their future students. Guidance and counseling personnel have utilized high school course pattern information in academic counseling at both the precollege and college levels.College officials' interest in the secondary school curricular backgrounds of their entering students has also increased because of recent changes in college entrance requirements. During the past 5 years, many states have adopted more extensive high school curriculum requirements for students entering public col­leges. For example, beginning in the fall of 1988, all 19 campuses in the Cali­fornia State University System will require first-year students to have completed4 years of high school English, 3 years of mathematics, a year of United States history, a year of laboratory science, 2 years of a foreign language, a year of visual and performing arts, and 3 years of elective subjects ("California State U. System Adopts," 1985). In a 1985 research report, Goertz and Johnson reported that "sixteen states have recently enacted, or are proposing, more stringent statewide admissions policies. . . . In all of the states making changes, the new or proposed policies involve either imposing (14) or strengthening (2) a prescribed pattern of high school coursework for entering freshmen." These new requirements have placed increased informational demands on college admission and academic officers.To assist colleges in identifying and/or documenting the high school courses taken by prospective students, the American College Testing Program (ACT) added, during the fall of 1985, a section to the ACT Assessment registration document designed to collect self-reported data on the particular courses taken and grades earned by students during secondary school. Because it was expected that this information would be used in planning and decision making related to college admis­sion, it was essential that the data be highly accurate. Therefore, prior to the addition of the new High School Course/Grade Information section to the ACT regis­tration materials, the ACT Research Division conducted a pilot study examining the accuracy with which students report their high school courses and grades. The purpose of this report is to summarize the findings of that study.Earlier FindingsNumerous research studies have examined the accuracy of self-reported student data. For example, in a study that compared student-reported data with corre­sponding data from high school transcripts, Armstrong, Jensen, McCaffrey, and Reynolds (1976) concluded that "students report their rank in class with a fairly high degree of accuracy, and that most discrepancies in reporting could be accounted for by confusion generated by SDQ (Student Descriptive Questionnaire) directions and individual school policies." McMorris and Ambrosino (1973) found