John P. Pennal Christian Brothers Academy Lincroft, New Jersey 07738
A Correlation between the ACS-NSTA Cooperative Exam and the CEEB Achievement Test
a correlation be. This paper is concerned with tween two nation-wide examinations used by high school teachers to evaluate their chemistry courses. I t is agreed that every standardized exam differs in its content emphasis; every teacher and every textbook differ in their degree of emphasis. However, standardized exams can provide some degree of comparison for teachers who are interested in knowing where their students stand in comoarison to the national norm. FornofP claims that similarities in high school chemistry courses are great enough to support valid nation-wide examinations. The two examinations used in this correlation are the American Chemical Society-National Science Teachers Association Cooperative ~ k a m i n a t i o n in High School Chemistry and the College Entrance Examination Board Achievement Test in Chemistry. In order to be more useful to teachers, correlations with CEEB Mathematics Achievement Test and I.Q. have been included in the study. An investigation of the literature seems to indicate that a correlation between these two examinations has never been done before. Due to the limitation of data available certain biases are present in the study. The students used in the study are above average in academic caliber. Their average I.Q. is 123 (Table 1). Their average percentile on the ACSNSTA Form 1967 is 91 (this represents a raw score of 54.1, Table I), and Form 1969 is 95 (this represents a raw score of 58. 6, Table I), while their average scores on the CEEB Achievements show equally high ranking. A second bias in the study is that the number of students investigated is only 30. Accepting these limitations let us discuss the actual results of the study. Table 2 shows the coefficients of correlation between the tests in Tahle 1. This coefficient is a single number that indicates to what extent two things are related. I t can vary from +1.000, indicating a perfect positive correlation, to 0, indicating complete indepencence or no correlation whatever, on down to -1.000, a perfect negative correlation. It would have t o b e said that this study shows a high positive correlation between the ACS-NSTA Form 1967 and 1969 and the CEEB Achievement Test in Chemistry since the correlation coefficients are 0.814 and 0.693, respectively (Table 2). This degree of correlation is especially high when compared with the correlation between the ACS-NSTA Form 1967 and Form 1969 themselves.
558
/ Journal of Chemical ducat ion
Table 1. A Comparison of Mean Data used in the Correlation Study Test
N
Mean
(1)a ACS-NSTAFom 1967 (2) ACS-NSTAForml969 (3) CEEBChem.Ach. (4) CEEB Math. Ach. (5) I,Q,c
30 30 30 30 30
54.1 58.6
a 0
Standard t S.D. Error Test 11.2 7.5
667
72
654 123
67 5.6
2.0 1.4 13.1 12.2
2,51b
"05
Number used to designate test inTable 2. Significant at the 0.05 level. Herman-Nelson Test of Mental Ability. Table 2. Correlation Coefficients for the Data in Table 1
(1)
(2)
(3)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
0.78F
0.814 0.693
0.384 0.429 0.550
-0.193 -0.194 -0.223 0.535
(4) a
Significant at the 0.05 level.
We would expect the high correlation between Form 1967 and Form 1969 since they are very similar in content and design. But the fact that the above mentioned correlation is within *0.1 of 0.784 makes the correlation more noteworthy. Further evidence which would support the significance of this correlation is that no other correlation made with Form 1967 and Form 1969 comes close to the correlation coefficient made with the Chemistry Achievement. I.Q. actually shows a negative correlation coefficient. Although far more data is presented in this paper than is needed to demonstrate the stated objective, i t seemed relevant for the sake of comparison to present similar correlations with other data available to the high school teacher. The implications of the report seem to indicate that within the hounds of a correlation study, students who do well on the ACS-NSTA Form 1967 and Form 1969 will likewise do well on the CEEB Chemistry Achievement Test. 'Present address: St. Peter's Boys High School, Staten Island, New Yark 10301. 2 Fornoff, F. J., Sch. and Soc., 98,242 (1971).
