ERIC Number: EJ1104403
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Jul
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0265-5322
EISSN: N/A
Predicting Grades from an English Language Assessment: The Importance of Peeling the Onion
Bridgeman, Brent; Cho, Yeonsuk; DiPietro, Stephen
Language Testing, v33 n3 p307-318 Jul 2016
Data from 787 international undergraduate students at an urban university in the United States were used to demonstrate the importance of separating a sample into meaningful subgroups in order to demonstrate the ability of an English language assessment to predict the first-year grade point average (GPA). For example, when all students were pooled in a single analysis, the correlation of scores from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) with GPA was 0.18; in a subsample of engineering students from China, the correlation with GPA was 0.58, or 0.77 when corrected for range restriction. Similarly, the corrected correlation of the TOEFL Reading score with GPA for Chinese business students changed dramatically (from 0.01 to 0.36) when students with an extreme discrepancy between their receptive (reading/listening) and productive (speaking/writing) scores were trimmed from the sample.
Descriptors: Grade Prediction, English Curriculum, Language Tests, Undergraduate Students, Grade Point Average, College Entrance Examinations, Correlation, Cluster Grouping, Test Reliability, Test Validity, Language Proficiency, Predictive Validity, Scores, Foreign Students, Intellectual Disciplines, Foreign Countries, Second Language Learning, Asians
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Test of English as a Foreign Language
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A