Subject Tests vs. General Study Skills Admission Tests - Which Perform Better in Selecting Prospective Successful Bachelor Students in Biology?
Abstract
The effectiveness of various types of admission test in selecting prospective successful university students is being intensively discussed. Until 2015/2016, Faculty of Science, Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) used a combination of a knowledge-based biology test and a general study skills test for selecting students into biological bachelor study programs.
Since 2016/2017, the use of the general study skills test was abandoned and only the biology test has been used. The aim of our study is to evaluate the relation between students' scores in both types of admission tests and their academic performance in the bachelor degree.
We analysed data from six subsequent academic years (2009/2010-2014/2015; n=1662). There was a rather weak correlation between the students' scores in the general study skills test and their grade average in the 1st study year.
Scores of the biology test and the study average correlated moderately and this correlation was stronger than if the scores from both tests were pooled. The results of the admission test in biology quite well reflected the later student outcome of the final bachelor's exam, while in the case of the general study skills this relation was not significant.
We therefore consider knowledge tests in biology being a more reliable criterion in selecting prospective students than the general study skills.