ACCUPLACER(TM) OnLine: Accurate Placement Tool for Developmental Programs?

To enhance student success and retention rates, most providers of developmental education programs administer some type of assessment to diagnose the educational needs of their clients for placement purposes (Brand, 1995; Ehringhaus, 1991; Stricht, 1990; Venezky, Bristow, & Sabatini, 1997). When selecting and assessing a suitable placement tool, such issues as content, reliability, feasibility, cost, and other logistics should be considered; however, the validity of the tool is "the most fundamental consideration.in evaluating tests" (p. 9) according to the American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education (1999) in their Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing publication. The validity of a test refers to the degree to which the test actually measures what it purports to measure and the extent to which decisions made upon the basis of the test scores are appropriate and meaningful.One of the newest placement tools currently being utilized by over 1000 institutes in North America is the ACCUPLACER(TM) Online testing system, a product of the College Board (College Board, 2005). This system consists of nine multiple-choice tests that measure skills in reading, listening, and mathematics; two essay tests that measure writing skills; plus several supplemental assessments (College Board, 2003). Like other computer-based tests, ACCUPLACER(TM) Online offers reduced testing time, enhanced security features, immediate feedback, and flexible testing sessions especially since it is Web based (Alderson, 2000; Association for Career & Technical Education, 1998; Noble, Schiel, & Sawyer, 2003; Russell, Goldberg, & O'Connor, 2003; Shults, 2000). It also is a "computer-adaptive" testing system and therefore capable of assessing a wide range of student abilities since the difficulty of the tests automatically adjusts to the skills of the individual examinee. Given these positive attributes, the ACCUPLACER(TM) Online testing system seems to be an ideal placement tool, especially for developmental programs; yet, very little is known about its predictive validity.There are different ways to measure the validity of a test, but predictive validity, which specifically measures the degree to which test scores predict criterion scores or performances at a later time, is probably the most pertinent when assessing the suitability and accuracy of placement tests. Since it is assumed that a higher score on a placement test would yield a stronger performance in a course or program whereas a lower score would equate to a weaker performance, typically predictive validity is expressed as a correlation coefficient. This is a number between -1 and +1 that indicates the directionality and strength of the linear relationship between the test scores (predictor variable) and the criterion performance or score (outcome variable). Assuming the correlation coefficient is statistically significant, the closer the coefficient is to +1 the stronger the predictive power of the test. Another method for measuring the predictive validity of a placement test, usually when cutoff scores are being examined, is to report the percentage of students who would have been or were correctly placed based upon the test scores; naturally the higher this percentage the better.Although a review of the literature revealed a lack of published studies evaluating the predictive validity of ACCUPLACER(TM) Online, there were numerous such studies found for its predecessor, the computer-based version of ACClTPIACER® (Cole & Muenz, 1998; Fields & Cosgrove, 2001; Napoli & Wortman, 1995; Smittle, 1995; Whitcomb, 2002), several of which focused on this test's predictive validity for developmental courses. One such major study that involved 50 institutes in North America was conducted by the College Board (2003) in the early 1990s. The correlation across institutes was . …