Accuracy of Self-reported SAT and ACT Test Scores: Implications for Research

By J. Cole, Robert M. Gonyea. 2010

156 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Because it is often impractical or impossible to obtain school transcripts or records on subjects, many researchers rely on college students to accurately self-report their academic record as part of their data collection procedures. The purpose of this study is to investigate the validity and reliability of student self-reported academic performance. As expected the study finds overall validity of self-reported test scores to be high. However, correlations between self-reported and actual SAT scores are significantly lower than correlations for self-reported and actual ACT Composite scores. This study also confirms prior research which found that when students are inaccurate in reporting their scores, a disproportionate number of them over-report their scores. Also consistent with other studies, this study finds that lower achieving students for both tests are much less accurate when reporting their scores.

Subfields: Computer Science Applications, Education, Management Science and Operations Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4770f99453aeefcb513cadf5efdb97760229ea55

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Computer Science Applications

1. David M. Condon
2. S. D’Mello
3. William Revelle
4. Stephen R. Porter

In Education

1. Pooja Gupta Sidney
2. David M. Condon
3. S. D’Mello
4. Jeffrey Rosen
5. William Revelle
6. Martha W. Alibali
7. Stephen R. Porter
8. Jim Rogers

In Management Science and Operations Research

1. David M. Condon
2. S. D’Mello
3. Pooja Gupta Sidney
4. Patrick Hays
5. Andrew McGregor Olney
6. Claire Williams
7. William Revelle
8. Martha W. Alibali

Citations in the corpus

• Who Benefits from Diagrams and Illustrations in Math Problems? Ability and Attitudes Matter (2018, background): “Self-reports of ability (such as ACT or SAT math scores) may be contaminated by reporting bias, and this may be especially prevalent among participants with lower ability (Cole & Gonyea, 2010).”
• Gaze tutor: A gaze-reactive intelligent tutoring system (2012, result): “Self-reported ACT and SAT scores have been found to strongly correlate with actual test scores (Cole and Gonyea, 2010), so we have some confidence in this measure.”
• The international cognitive ability resource: Development and initial validation of a public-domain measure (2014, methodology): “Despite these concerns, the reported correlations between self-reported and actual scores suggest that the rank-ordering of scores is maintained, regardless of the magnitude of differences (Cole & Gonyea, 2009; Kuncel et al., 2005; Mayer et al., 2006).”
• Do College Student Surveys Have Any Validity? (2011, background): “For example, Cole and Gonyea (2010) found a strong correlation between self-reported and actual SAt scores, but only 62–70% of respondents could accurately report within +/- 20 points of their true scores.”
• Understanding Student Self-Reports of Academic Performance and Course-Taking Behavior (2017, background): “Cole and Gonyea (2010) investigated reporting accuracy in selfreported ACT scores, finding that when students are inaccurate in reporting their scores, a disproportionate number of them overreport their scores; again, lower-achieving students are much less accurate when reporting their scores.”