skip to main content skip to footer

Methods Used to Establish Score Comparability on the Enhanced ACT Assessment and the SAT ACT SAT

Author(s):
Baron, Patricia A.; Marco, Gary Lee.
Publication Year:
1992
Report Number:
RR-92-25
Source:
ETS Research Report
Document Type:
Report
Page Count:
20
Subject/Key Words:
College Board, American College Testing Program (ACT), College Entrance Examinations, Scaling, Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), Scores, Statistical Analysis

Abstract

Recently Marco and Abdel-fattah (1991) reported newly established relationships between scores on the enhanced American College Testing Program (ACT) Assessment and scores on the College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). The current report provides a detailed description of the methodology that was used to develop the "concordance" tables reported in that study. Fourteen large universities provided data on applicants who had taken both the enhanced ACT Assessment and the SAT. The ACT Composite scores and the SAT-verbal and SAT-mathematical (SAT-V + M) scores used in the comparability study came from ACT Assessment test editions administered from October 1989 to June 1990 and SAT editions administered from March 1989 to June 1990. The total sample consisted of 40,492 students. A subsample of 40,051 students who took the enhanced ACT Assessment and the SAT no more than 217 days apart was also used in the comparability study. The equipercentile procedure, a curvilinear procedure, was used to scale the scores. Steps were taken to ensure the accuracy of the conversions by (1) weighting the scores to reduce or eliminate the effect of the time differential between ACT and SAT testings or (2) smoothing the score distributions before scaling. The score conversions derived by applying the weighting procedures provided score adjustments that were in the direction implied by the length of time between testings. (20pp.)

Read More