State Mean SAT Score as a Function of Participation Rate and Other Educational and Demographic Variables
- 1 April 1989
- journal article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Applied Measurement in Education
- Vol. 2 (2) , 143-159
- https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324818ame0202_4
Abstract
The present study examined the impact of participation rate and nine other educational and demographic variables on state mean scores for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Participation rate, defined as the percentage of a state's high school seniors taking the SAT represented by the z-score mean of a truncated normal distribution, was the most important single predictor of state mean SAT score, accounting for 77% of the total variance in mean scores. The inclusion of significant educational and demographic variables raised the proportion of variance explained to 94%. The fallacy of comparing the mean standardized test scores of different locations or time periods without taking participation rate into account is discussed.Keywords
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