Prepare, Inspire, Connect

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Melinda Hodges
7 years ago
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2 C O L L E G E S U C C E S S The new SAT : Implemented March 2005 Steve Kotten Director, SAT Operations New York, USA Prepare. Inspire. Connect.

3 The College Board The College Board established Nonprofit membership association composed of over 4,300 members (high schools, colleges, universities) Mission To prepare, inspire, and connect students to college and opportunity. Serves over 3 million students, 23,000 high schools, and 3,500 colleges each year world-wide Admissions, guidance, assessment, financial aid, enrollment, and teaching and learning. SAT, PSAT/NMSQT, and the Advanced Placement Program (AP )

4 SAT Background SAT created to identify strong students from non-elite college prep schools Over 3.3 million tests administered worldwide in over 130 countries in the school year Measures verbal and math reasoning ability important to college success Math - solve problems by applying mathematics skills and concepts (algebra, geometry, probability, newly defined functions and operations) Verbal read critically, interpret author s point of view and use of language, draw inferences, understand vocabulary in context

5 SAT International 176,000 SATs given internationally (5% of total), up 40% since 1999 Singapore, Canada, Lebanon, India, Nigeria, Egypt largest volume SAT taken primarily by students planning on studying in the US but some nations/institutions requiring or using on a limited basis while others are considering Singapore national universities require SAT for admissions; weighted 25% towards total ranking

6 SAT Validity Correlations with freshman year college performance (GPA) SAT Verbal.47 SAT Math.48 SAT Combined (V+M) Score High School Grade Point Average (HSGPA) SAT Score + HSGPA

7 The Changes to the SAT Verbal Math Writing Time frame March 2005 Change name to critical reading Eliminate analogies Add short paragraph reading passages Add advanced content Eliminate quantitative comparisons Multiple-choice: grammar and usage Student-written essay Diagnostics Working toward addition of diagnostics

8 Proposed Time Specifications current SAT new SAT 3 hours 3 hours 35 minutes Critical Reading Math 75 minutes Two 30-minute sections and one 15-minute section 75 minutes Two 30-minute sections and one 15-minute section 70 minutes Two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section 70 minutes Two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section 50 minutes Addition of writing as a third measure should increase validity. Writing One 25-minute multiple-choice section and one 25-minute essay Variable Section 30 minutes 25 minutes

9 Rationale for New SAT To improve the alignment of the SAT to curriculum and instructional practices in high school and college To help colleges make better admissions and placement decisions on behalf of students by providing a third measure writing skills To reinforce the importance of writing skills throughout a child s education Maintain or improve validity, psychometric quality, and trend data Ensure changes will not exacerbate group differences

10 Test Scores Maintain Equivalence and Trend Data: Between the old verbal and new critical reading sections Between the old and new math sections Current SAT New SAT Critical Reading V CR Math M M Writing (Subscores) W (Essay 2 12 ) (Multiple choice 20 80)

11 New SAT Writing Section Improved predictive validity Encourage writing in schools Short essay Measures ability to organize ideas, express ideas clearly, support main idea, use conventions of standard written English Multiple-choice Measures ability to improve sentences and paragraphs, identify errors (grammar, sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, proper word usage, wordiness)

12 Essay Scoring Procedures Scored by trained high school teachers and college professors who teach English Composition Each essay is scored independently by two readers according to a holistic scoring guide Essays are scored on a scale of 1 to 6 by each reader (total score of 2 to 12) If the two readers scores differ by more than two points, the essay is read by a third reader Currently, less than 2% of all scored essays call for a 3 rd reader Essays will be scanned and distributed to readers via the Web. Scoring and reader supervision will take place online

13 Revised SAT Critical Reading Section Strengthen alignment with instructional practices Measures knowledge of genre, cause and effect, rhetorical devices, comparative arguments, and the ability to recognize relationships among parts of a text Reading passages taken from different fields Natural sciences Humanities Social science Literary fiction

14 Field Trial Results Over 45,000 students from 680 schools participated in our field trial by completing a full length (or equivalent) SAT or P/N test last March Students in the study were representative of the population of current test takers Analyses show that the changes to the Verbal and Math tests do not impact the difficulty or reliability of the test. Scores on the current SAT are comparable, and will be equated, to scores on the new SAT.

15 Field Trial Results Sub-Group Differences Changes to the math and reading content, and types of questions, do not suggest that subgroup differences will be exacerbated The addition of writing does not exacerbate differences for females or African Americans, and the gap is smaller for Latino or Asian American students than SAT Verbal It appears that changes could slightly reduce gender differences and differences for 1 or more ethnic/racial groups. We will need to wait for operational data to make final conclusions

Best Practices for Helping All Students Get Ready for the SAT. Prepared for Idaho SDE January 2014

Best Practices for Helping All Students Get Ready for the SAT Prepared for Idaho SDE January 2014 SAT Readiness Program Agenda: SAT Introduction SAT Preparation The Official SAT Online Course PSAT Participation