During the 13th week of the 2002 Spring semester, thirty TSJC sophomores took the American College Testing Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency test ( www.act.org). Each student took three tests: eighteen took the writing skills test, nineteen took the mathematics test, nineteen took the critical thinking test, nineteen took the reading test, and seventeen took the science reasoning test. Ten of these sophomores were students from the Alamosa campus while the remaining twenty were from the Trinidad campus. 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, 40% were AA candidates, 10% AS candidates, and 50% AAS candidates. Three students records (one AA and two AAS) were removed from the analysis because they had received the majority of their General Education credits at other institutions. The summary scores shown in the table below are national percentiles:
|
Writing Skills |
Math |
Reading |
Critical Thinking |
Science Reasoning |
|
|
Overall Average |
43% |
53% |
49% |
46% |
52% |
|
Standard Deviation |
25% |
33% |
25% |
18% |
20% |
|
Minimum |
3% |
5% |
5% |
17% |
31% |
|
Maximum |
89% |
99% |
86% |
82% |
93% |
|
Student Count |
17 |
17 |
17 |
15 |
15 |
|
Number Above 50% |
6 |
9 |
9 |
6 |
6 |
|
Number Below 33% |
9 |
7 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
|
Trinidad Average |
46% |
54% |
44% |
45% |
53% |
|
Alamosa Average |
39% |
52% |
61% |
46% |
50% |
|
AA average |
54% |
71% |
44% |
49% |
50% |
|
AAS average |
33% |
23% |
46% |
42% |
46% |
|
AS average |
65% |
85% |
79% |
46% |
75% |
The overall averages tended to be near the national norm, 50% percent of the roughly 20,000 American sophomores scored at or below and the other 50% above that level. Because of the relatively high standard deviations for the scores on each skills test, even the lowest and highest averages (42.7% for writing skills and 53.2% for mathematics) are not statistically significantly different.
Averaging the number of students in each test group who scored at or above the national norm yields 44%; i.e., roughly 44% of TSJC students scored at or above the 50th percentile. The best ratios were in reading and math, with nine of the seventeen, 53%, scoring at or above the 50th percentile. Six fifteenths, 40%, scored at or above the 50th percentile in both critical thinking and science reasoning. Six seventeenths, 35%, scored at or above the 50th percentile on the writing skills test. Percentages, of students who scored below the 33rd percentile were: 53% on the writing skills test, 41% on the math test, 24% on the reading test, 27% on critical thinking test, and 20% on the science reasoning test. The writing skills test had both the lowest number scoring above the national norm and the highest number scoring below the 33rd percentile; this could indicate that we need to pay even more attention to developing writing skills, especially through a renewed push to incorporate writing across the curriculum. The only areas where more than half our students taking this test scored at or above the national norm were reading and math, and this number, 53%, is just barely above half. This indicates that we are probably slightly below the national norm and so need to (continue to) pay close attention to underprepared students.
Most of the data show a great deal of spread. For example, writing skills scores range from the 3rd percentile to 89th percentile, math from 5th to 99th percentile, reading from 5th to 86th percentile, critical thinking from 17th to 82nd percentile, and science reasoning from 31st to 93rd percentile. This indicates that we have a very broad range of individuals at TSJC. On the other hand, we must ask whether our general education program successfully served students who scored below the percentiles below that associated with guessing (approximately 7th percentile).
Several trends in the above table make some sense. The mathematics scores should follow the trend shown 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.
These data suggest most strongly that we watch those students who would score very low, in this last set, 3%, 5%, and 5% on writing, math, and reading, respectively. We must make every effort to identify them early and make sure they learn these basic skills prior to graduation. The college continues to work on enforcing using placement scores to place students into the correct course at matriculation and especially to eliminate those "holes" in the placement process which allow unprepared students to take courses for which they are not prepared.