Psychological Reporfs, 1992, 7 0 , 833-834. @ Psychological Reports 1992
ANOTHER LOOK AT T H E APTITUDE-ACHIEVEMENT DISTINCTION
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DAVID S. G O H AND DENNIS McELHERON
City University of New York-Queens College Summary.-48 high school students were administered the Arithmetic subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised, the Mathematics subtest of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test-Revised, and the Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Test. Correlations, of about .80 among the three tests, were interpreted as supporting a part of the continuum theory of Humphreys, Anastasi, and Cronbach for conceptualizing the distinction between aptitude and achievement tests.
The aptitude-achievement distinction has been an issue of interest to psychologists hstorically. High correlations between aptitude and achievement tests were reported as early as in the 1920s by KelIey (1927), and many others from that time on to the present. A position, therefore, has evolved from these findings that the two types of tests measure the same trait. In the meantime, however, dimensions of difference between aptitude and achievement tests have been described in the literature in terms of breadth of items, variety of experience required, and age of learning sampled (Humphreys, 1974). Psychologists (e.g., Humphreys, 1974; Anastasi, 1980) posit the two types of tests do not differ in the trait they measure but rather in the experiential background each requires. Aptitude tests are viewed as tapping a general set of prior experience whereas achievement tests are viewed as measures of outcomes of rather specific learning and instruction. Obviously, antecedent experiences required by aptitude and achievement measures overlap. The extent of such overlap directly influences the correlations between scores on the two types of tests, that is, the greater the overlap the. higher the correlation would be. This reasoning can be used to explain the varying correlations between aptitude and achievement test scores reported in the empirical literature. For example, Kelley (1927) reported the totaI score of the Stanford Achievement Tests correlated higher with the Stanford-Binet than any of the parts, a pattern repeatedly observed in later studies. The present study hypothesized that in a specific content/skill area where the required previous experiences are common or similar to both aptitude and achievement tests, high correlations would be expected between the two types of tests. One such area is arithmetic which appears on practically all aptitude and achievement tests. To examine this hypothesis, a small group of 48 high school students whose mean age was 17 yc, 10 mo. were ~
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'Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. David S. Goh at the School of Education, Queens College of the City University of New York, Flushing, New York 11367-0904.
834
D. S. G O H
&
D. McELHERON
administered, in a complete counterbalanced procedure, the Arithmetic subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R Arithmetic), the Mathematics subtest of the Peabody Individual Achievement TestRevised (PIAT-R Mathematics) and the Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Test. These three tests were chosen because they are widely used. Also, the PIAT-R Mathematics and the Stanford subtest represent two different types of achievement tests of mathematics, the former being a screening test and the latter a diagnostic measure. The means and standard deviations of the standard scores for the WAIS-R Arithmetic, PIAT-R Mathematics, and the Stanford test were 8.81 and 2.72, 88.19 and 15.59, and 647.96 and 56.57, respectively. Pearson correlations (p
ANOTHER LOOK AT T H E APTITUDE-ACHIEVEMENT DISTINCTION
'
DAVID S. G O H AND DENNIS McELHERON
City University of New York-Queens College Summary.-48 high school students were administered the Arithmetic subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised, the Mathematics subtest of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test-Revised, and the Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Test. Correlations, of about .80 among the three tests, were interpreted as supporting a part of the continuum theory of Humphreys, Anastasi, and Cronbach for conceptualizing the distinction between aptitude and achievement tests.
The aptitude-achievement distinction has been an issue of interest to psychologists hstorically. High correlations between aptitude and achievement tests were reported as early as in the 1920s by KelIey (1927), and many others from that time on to the present. A position, therefore, has evolved from these findings that the two types of tests measure the same trait. In the meantime, however, dimensions of difference between aptitude and achievement tests have been described in the literature in terms of breadth of items, variety of experience required, and age of learning sampled (Humphreys, 1974). Psychologists (e.g., Humphreys, 1974; Anastasi, 1980) posit the two types of tests do not differ in the trait they measure but rather in the experiential background each requires. Aptitude tests are viewed as tapping a general set of prior experience whereas achievement tests are viewed as measures of outcomes of rather specific learning and instruction. Obviously, antecedent experiences required by aptitude and achievement measures overlap. The extent of such overlap directly influences the correlations between scores on the two types of tests, that is, the greater the overlap the. higher the correlation would be. This reasoning can be used to explain the varying correlations between aptitude and achievement test scores reported in the empirical literature. For example, Kelley (1927) reported the totaI score of the Stanford Achievement Tests correlated higher with the Stanford-Binet than any of the parts, a pattern repeatedly observed in later studies. The present study hypothesized that in a specific content/skill area where the required previous experiences are common or similar to both aptitude and achievement tests, high correlations would be expected between the two types of tests. One such area is arithmetic which appears on practically all aptitude and achievement tests. To examine this hypothesis, a small group of 48 high school students whose mean age was 17 yc, 10 mo. were ~
-
'Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. David S. Goh at the School of Education, Queens College of the City University of New York, Flushing, New York 11367-0904.
834
D. S. G O H
&
D. McELHERON
administered, in a complete counterbalanced procedure, the Arithmetic subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R Arithmetic), the Mathematics subtest of the Peabody Individual Achievement TestRevised (PIAT-R Mathematics) and the Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Test. These three tests were chosen because they are widely used. Also, the PIAT-R Mathematics and the Stanford subtest represent two different types of achievement tests of mathematics, the former being a screening test and the latter a diagnostic measure. The means and standard deviations of the standard scores for the WAIS-R Arithmetic, PIAT-R Mathematics, and the Stanford test were 8.81 and 2.72, 88.19 and 15.59, and 647.96 and 56.57, respectively. Pearson correlations (p
