ACT： CONTRIBUTOR OR DISRUPTOR IN HIGHER EDUCATION

中图分类号：H319 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1672-1578（2015）07-0002-03

American College Test， abbreviated as ACT，is recognized by most colleges and universities in America as a requirement of admission. Many selective colleges and universities have high requirements for ACT score and some even use it as one of the requirements to evaluate the application of scholarships. American families also value this test by spending about $530 million annually in test preparation and tutoring services （Marte， 2011）. It does not include the registration fee $35.

General introduction of ACT

This test is provided six to seven times in one year， which consists of four independent subject tests： English， Mathematics， Reading， and science. （It also offers an optional writing part which students take at the end of the test） It required the students to finish all the four tests in 205 minutes. Each test has 1 as the minimum score and 36 as the maximum score. Moreover， a composite score is provided based on the average of the four tests rounded to the nearest whole number. In terms of test questions， it is predominantly made up of multiple questions. Unlike SAT， ACT does not penalize students' scores for wrong answers to discourage random guessing.

The students who want to apply for the colleges and universities usually take the tests in the spring of their junior year or in the fall of their senior year so that they can obtain the report timely. If they are not satisfied with their scores， they can take the tests several times until the time they feel that the score they gain is satisfactory. Colleges and universities typically tend to use the highest score among the several tests for the evaluation of the students' admission.

Brief History of ACT

The ACT is designed as an achievement test mainly by Everett Lindquist and Ted McCarrel to highlight the talents who are academically competent in the state in 1959， which grew out of a high school competition in Iowa. According the the founders of ACT， there are two purposes combined in this test. The first is to establish a common admission test that can be recognized nationally as a significant of the students' readiness for the college， which is intended to measure their knowledge of the curriculum. The next purpose is about informing students about which college to apply and which program to study via asking about the students' interest. At the same time， this can help colleges and universities have a basic understanding of their prospective students' academic competence.

As expected， ACT， together with SAT， has become accepted as a vital element of the admission process by most of the four-year institutions of American higher education. Unlike SAT which gains popularity in the Northeast and on the West coast， ACT has a dominant role in the colleges and universities of the Midwest and South. As released by ACT in 2011， there are 1.62 million took the test who want to continue their study in higher education. The second purpose can help colleges and universities know whether they are popular among the prospective students and what programs they desire so that some adjustments can be made to improve their images.

Scores of ACT and Percent of college-readiness from 2011-2014

From 2001 to 2014， there is a gradual increase in percent of students who took ACT as illustrated by Table 1. In 2011， there was 49% of the high school graduates took part in this test， which means about 322，000 high school graduates. In 2014， the percent rose to 57%， which is 8% increase. It indicates that there is a growing popularity of ACT among high school students and American families.

Table 1 Percent of high school graduates took ACT

In Table 2， it can be identified that there are some variations of ACT score from 2011 to 2014 nationally. The average score of English of 2011 is the highest， it started to drop from 2012 to 2012， though there is a 0.1 regain in 2014. In terms of reading， it is almost the same in the four years， except in 2013 it dropped 21.1. As for Mathematics and science， there is a decrease both from 2013. The composite score， it remained the same in 2011 and 2012， dropped to 20.7 in 2013， and regained to 20.8 in 2014.

From Table 2， the percent of college readiness reveals that there is a big decrease in reading test from 52% to 44%. At the same time， there is an increase in Science， from 20.9% in 2011 to 37% in 2014. Holistically， the percent of college-readiness in Mathematics and Science is lower than that in English and Reading， which requires colleges and universities to pay more attention to the cultivation of Mathematics and Science. This has been widely found and recognized in STEM education.

Table 3 provides a detailed picture of ACT in Mississippi. Comparatively， the average score of English， Reading， Mathematics， and Science is far below that national average score， which results the low composite score. In English， there is an increase of 0.2 from 2014， remaining as 18.8 in 2014. In terms of reading， there is a gradual increase starting from 18.8 in 2011 to 19.4 in 2014. There is less variation in Mathematics from 2012 as 18.3. Though compared with national average score in Science， Mississippi still lagged behind， it cannot be denied that there is an increase from 18.7 in 2011， to 18.9 in 2014. On the whole， the composite score rose to 19 in 2014.

In the aspect of college-readiness， the percent remains steady in English， Reading and Mathematics from 2011-2014， while in Science there is an increase， it rose to 21% in 2014. It reveals that Mississippi State may have improved in Science in recent years. Researchers in high education can take this into account to discern the contributing factors and at the same time find ways to improve all the four tests. At the same time， in order to prepare Mississippi students to compete in the national talent market and even international talent market， colleges and universities need to face and address the deficiency.

What ACT has contributed to American higher education？

ACT can be regarded as the assessment of high school graduates independently to determine whether the test taker is read for college life. It is more academically-oriented， thus it is widely used by colleges and universities for admission. It is also more cognitive ability-oriented， therefore it is often used by some organizations or colleges and universities to determine the candidates' IQ.

Admission

For admission officers of colleges and universities， the primary task is to know how to identify whether the applicants will succeed in their studies. This is beneficial not only to institutions but also to the students themselves， because academic failure will make them suffer more than not being admitted. Evans （2013） claimed that there four criteria for admission： having exceptional academic achievement， having diverse background， being of great contribution to the society， and being strongly loyal to the institution. Although ACT is only one of the four components， it can ensure that the applicants meet the first and impressive requirement of being able to succeed at the desired institution.

The interviewed officers declared that ACT can provide a common metric on which to assess students with different backgrounds and high school preparation. Without such standard test like ACT， it is extremely difficult for colleges and universities to judge the quality of a high school curriculum only by their transcripts. While， ACT score can work as a way to put all the students on the same scale. In this aspect， it can help the students who are underachievers in high school have the promising potential to succeed in colleges studies. What's more， ACT can be employed as an indicator for how well students will do in their coming college lives. They believe that high achieve can succeed in terms of satisfactory GPA and persisting from year to year. This viewpoint is supported by Kane （2006）， he stated that there is an overlap between test performance and their college outcomes like GPA and retention. Similarly， Noble and Sawyer （2002） identified in their studies that composite score is usually more accurate at predicting GPA of college study. However， Evans claimed claimed that only the scores of English and Mathematics can be used as predicator of GPA and retention， instead of the scores of all the subjects.

Cognitive ability

Many researchers found that there are psychometric similarities between the measures of academic achievement and the assessment of IQ because many IQ tests include sub items， like vocabulary， that are dependent on the knowledge the students have been exposed. Coyle （2006） determined that the raw scores of ACT are significantly predicative of the assessment of cognitive ability. Meanwhile， Baade and Schoenberg （2004） made a meta-analysis of the relationship between achievement test and scores on IQ tests and proposed that there is a high correlation between them.

This correlation is instrumental for researchers in higher education. To some extent， ACT can function as a valuable tool for researchers to obtain an estimation of IQ especially when having the traditional IQ tests is impractical and impossible for them. The fact is that ACT scores have been employed as a replacement of IQ tests and will continue to be used in this way.

Disruptor in higher education

Though ACT has contributed much， it also has produced some disruptions in higher education. Some researchers doubted ACT's role in readiness assessment and it may involve racial bias.

College readiness

College-readiness bench marks set up by ACT are used to predict whether a student has 50% chance of earning at least a B or a student has 75 % chance of earning at least a C in his or her first-year college study. However， Heller （2012） stated that only 56 % of those newly-enrolled four-year college students in 2011 had obtained a degree six years later and the rate was even lower among student who came from minority groups. Surprisingly， the data gathered 10 years later indicated similarly that there is about 19% of high school graduates in 2011 were judged college ready in most of the subjects tested by ACT， they did not enroll in any college or did not return back to campus after the first year of college study （Adams， 2013）.

Therefore， researchers advised that people in higher education should not only focus on ACT scores to predict college readiness of their students. More attention can be paid to some non academic factors

Racial bias /economic issue

Racial bias is the other disruption claimed by some researchers like Adams （2013）. Through comparing the average scores of different racial or ethnic groups， they identified that there is a wide gap. White students were concluded far outperformed other groups of students like African American， Hispanic， and American Indians. The data from 2011 revealed that the while earned the average composite score of 22.4 while African American students earned only 17.0.

This gap is probably caused by educational inequalities in their elementary schools and high schools among white students and other groups of minority. Card and Rothstain （2007） declared in their research findings that contributing factors like parents' education level， neighborhood， schools and racial segregation in the cities can be used to understand the gap. Because test like ACT is usually classified as aptitude test， the public is more likely to be misled in labeling minority groups as low aptitude.

Suggestions for improving through higher education

Although ACT has been considered as a significant tool in admission， the doubt of its disruption require researchers in higher education to identify ways to avoid or clear these disadvantages. More efforts are expected to made to the following aspects by colleges and universities： devoting more to prepare and train teachers from elementary and middle schools， establishing scientific supporting mechanism to help those non-ready students and even those seemingly college ready students， researching on how to help minority groups to excel in the achievement test.

References：

[1]Adams， C. Most students aren't ready for college， ACT data show[J]. Education Week. （August， 28， 2013）.

[2]Baade， L. E. & Schoenberg， M. R. A proposed method to estimate premorbid intelligence utilizing group achievement measures from school records[M]. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology， （2004）. 19， 227-243.

[3]Card， D. & Rothstein， J. Racial segregation and the black-white test score gap[M]. Journal of Public Economics（2007）. 91， 2158-2184.

[4]Coyle， T. R. Test-retest changes on scholastic aptitude tests are not related to g[J]. Intelligence， （2006）.34， 15-27.

[5]Evans， B. J. College Admission Testing in America.International perspectives in higher education admission policy： A reade[EB/OL]r. New York， NY： Peter Lang. Retrieved from http：//cepa. stanford. edu/sites/default/files/Draft% 20of% 20College% 20Testing% 20in% 20America. pdf. 2013.

[6]Heller， R. What studies say about college readiness. The National Education Writers Association[EB/OL]. Retrieved from http：//www.ewa.org/publication/what-studies-say-about-college-readiness. 2012.

[7]Kane， M. T. Validation. In Educational measurement[J]. 4th edition， ed. R. L. Brennan. 17-64. Westport CT： American Council on Education. 2006.

[8]Marte， J. 10 things test-prep services wont' tell you. Smart Money[J]. April， 5， 2011.

[9]Noble， J. & Sawyer. Predicting difference levels of academic success in college using high school GPA and ACT composite score[M]. Iowa City： ACT. 2002.

作者简介：李征娅（1975年-），女，硕士，西安文理学院副教授，研究方向：课程与教学论。