First-Year College Performance: A Study of Home School Graduates and Traditional School Graduates

Journal of College Admission, Spring 2004 by Jones, Paul, Gloeckner, Gene

In a 1995 study conducted by ACT on the reliability of the ACT Assessment scores, reliability coefficients were high (at .85 to .92 on each subtest and a coefficient of .96 on the ACT Composite test score). To ensure content validity, ACT provides ongoing assessment of the content validity by ensuring that the "test content is representative of current high school and university curricula" (37).

Analyses

Researchers designed this study to compare the first-year academic performance of home school graduates and traditional high school graduates measured on the following four dependent variables: (1) grade point average; (2) retention; (3) ACT Test scores; and (4) credits earned in their first year of college.

The final section determined if there were statistical differences between home school graduates and traditional high school graduates on the following three variables: (1) gender, (2) race/ethnicity (minority versus non-minority students), and (3) institutional type (college versus university enrolled).

Results

Researchers rejected eight of the nine null hypotheses. Table 1 shows the equivalence of the groups on gender, race/ ethnicity (minority versus non-minority), and college or university enrolled.

Researchers rejected the results of the first three hypotheses, with the home school first-year mean grade point average 2.78 and traditional high school graduates mean grade point average at 2.59, [t (106) = .923, p = .358]. The first-year retention 42 students were retained for both home-school and traditional high school gradates after their first semester, [X^sup 2^ (1, N= 108) = .130, p = .818]. Home school graduates earned 23.85 credit hours compared to 22.69 credit hours earned in the first-year for traditional high school graduates, [t (106) = .554, p = .581].

Although they rejected eight of the null hypotheses, Table 2 shows that the ACT Composite, Mathematics and Science subtests scores of home school graduates approached statistical significance compared to the same scores for traditional graduates. Because the previous research did not support home school graduates consistently out-performing their traditional high school peers, the researchers did not predict that home school graduates would have performed better than traditional high school graduates. If the researchers would have expected this difference and tested the variables as a one-tailed test, home school graduates would have scored statistically higher than their peers on the ACT Composite, Mathematics and Science subtests scores.

Finally, researchers conducted a test to determine if first-year grade point average, first-year earned credit hours, first-year retention, and the ACT Composite test score correlate.

Table 3 shows strong link between ACT Composite test scores and the other three variables: retention, cumulative grade point average, and cumulative credits earned. Retention and cumulative credits hours earned were strongly connected. Students' ACT Composite test scores generally predicted first-year retention, first-year grade point average and cumulative credits earned. Logically, retained students earned more cumulative credits hours.