<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Feb 10, 2006, at 4:04 PM, Jerome Epstein wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I think Charles is correct to be very concerned about online placement.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I would point out that on my Basic Skills Diagnostic Test (BSDT -- write<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">for info if you want), there is a quite strong correlation between the<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">score on the first half and the SAT I. The first half of the test is<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">non-algebraic and all of its questions should be answerable by a<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">competent 8th or 9th grader. What is quite stunning is the relative<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">scale of the correlation. If one says that 75% on the 8th grade level<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">test is minimally competent this correlates to 620 on the SAT. Below 600<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">one finds rapidly increasing probability that one will see serious<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">problems at elementary school level math, approaching virtual certainty<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">at 500 (the national average). This has been shown now at 3<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">universities, and with many hundreds of students at my university. <BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>Does this mean that those universities have done a study? I'd be interested in a reference.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The (old) SAT is well known (at least in testing circles) to underpredict (in general, on average) women's undergraduate mathematics course grades relative to those of men. Marcia Linn and I summarized studies about the SAT (and other things, including possible legal consequences of its misuse) in:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV class="Publications">C. Kessel and M. Linn. (1996). Grades or scores: Predicting future college mathematics performance. <I>Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 15</I><SPAN style="">(4), 10–14, 38.</SPAN></DIV><DIV class="Publications"> <O:P></O:P></DIV><DIV class="Publications">M. Linn and C. Kessel. (1996). Success in mathematics: Increasing talent and gender diversity. In Alan Schoenfeld, Ed Dubinsky, and James Kaput (Eds.), <I>Research in Collegiate Mathematics Education II </I><SPAN style="">(pp. 101-144). Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society.</SPAN></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The SAT is not designed as a placement test. I haven't kept up with what happens with the new one as regards underprediction of grades, but (again) the new one is not designed as a placement test, so any math department that wants to use it that way needs to validate that use or worry about possible legal consequences.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>--Cathy</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>