During the 11th week of the 2003 Spring semester, thirty TSJC sophomores took the American College Testing Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency test (www.act.org). Each student on the Trinidad campus took three tests: twelve took the writing skills test, twelve took the mathematics test, twelve took the critical thinking test, twelve took the reading test, and twelve took the science reasoning test. Ten sophomores from the Alamosa campus took all five tests. All of the Trinidad students volunteered to take the test while; the Alamosa students, however, were required to take the exam. Of the entire pool of thirty students, 30% were AA candidates, 23% AS candidates, and 47% AAS candidates. The summary scores shown in the table below are national percentiles (except for count and percentage of students in sample above 50th percentile and percentage of students in sample below the 33rd percentile:
| Write | Math | Read | CritThnk | SciRsn | |
| COUNT | 22 | 22 | 22 | 22 | 22 |
| AVERAGE | 47.1 | 55.3 | 45.1 | 51.1 | 61.8 |
| STDDEV | 32.5 | 27.6 | 25.2 | 31.5 | 29.2 |
| Min | 8 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Max | 99 | 99 | 93 | 99 | 98 |
| %above 50% | 36% | 68% | 36% | 50% | 59% |
| %below 33% | 41% | 23% | 36% | 27% | 27% |
| Tdad Ave | 41 | 63 | 33 | 41 | 65 |
| SLV Ave | 54 | 46 | 60 | 63 | 59 |
| AA Ave | 45 | 54 | 46 | 36 | 58 |
| AS Ave | 61 | 80 | 27 | 54 | 78 |
| AAS Ave | 45 | 46 | 49 | 56 | 57 |
Again (like spring 2002), the data show a great deal of spread and averages of the percentiles tend to be center at the national norm of 50the percentile. Also the standard deviations were quite high because the ranges of scores for each skills test were large. The percentage of our sample of students scoring above the 50% national norm was largest in math, at 68% and lowest in writing and reading (at 36%). Writing also had the highest percentage of our sample scoring below the 33rd percentile nationally. Again, like last year's data, this years data again underscores the importance of attending closely to those students who come through the entire program but still do not have adequate writing, math, reading, or critical thinking skills.
Again, trends such ast AS students doing better in mathematics and science reasoning make sense.
Again, mathematics scores follow the trend expected by degree because AAS students are required to take MAT 110 (Problems in College Math), while most AA students take MAT 135 (Statistics), and most AS students take either MAT 121 (College Algebra) or 201 (Calculus). The CAAP test mathematics test contains basic skills math, coordinate geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and calculus, thus correlating well with the AS mathematics sequence. Statistics, the course taken by most AA students, reinforces basic skills and algebra, but uses no trigonometry or calculus. Finally, MAT 110 covers basic skills, some geometry, some algebra, and some trigonometry. Consequently, the results match well. The degree trend related to the science reasoning and the writing skills parts of the test also seems to be consistent with curricular differences among these degrees.
Correlating by campus shows that the San Luis Valley students performed quite a bit better in both reading and critical thinking than Trinidad campus students. The opposite shows for math while the differences in writing and science reasoning are minimal.