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GRE Scores as Predictors of Career Achievement in History GRE

Author(s):
Schrader, William B.
Publication Year:
1980
Report Number:
GREB-76-01bR
Source:
ETS GRE Board Report
Document Type:
Report
Page Count:
15
Subject/Key Words:
Career Performance, College Admissions Assessments, Historians, Attainment Measures, Graduate Record Examination (GRE)

Abstract

This exploratory study is concerned with identifying several measures of career attainment for historians and with relating these measures to GRE scores and to other relevant characteristics. The basic hypothesis of the study is that abilities measured at the time of admission to graduate school are related to career performance after earning the doctorate. The study was so designed that a number of its results could be compared with those of a study of psychologists reported in GRE Research Board Report GREB No. 76-1R. The analysis sample for this study included 83 historians who had earned a doctorate in history in 1963-64 or 1964-65, who had earned a bachelor's degree between 1954 and 1962, and who had retrievable test scores on the Aptitude Test and an Advanced Test of the GRE. Because the sample size was quite small, any conclusions based on these data must be quite tentative. Nevertheless, it is of interest that GRE-verbal and GRE advanced test scores and department quality ratings yield small positive correlations with citation counts. These results, when considered along with results obtained in a recently-completed study of psychologists, are sufficiently promising to warrant further studies of similar designs.

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