Ten-Year Trends in SAT Scores and Other Characteristics of High School Seniors Taking the SAT ...

188 Pages·2007·2.25 MB·English

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 289 739
SE 048 824
AUTHOR
Grandy, Jerilee
TITLE
Ten-Year Trends in SAT Scores and Other
Characteristics of High School Seniors Taking the SAT
and Planning To Study Mathematics, Science, or
Engineering. Research Report.
INSTITUTION
Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J.
SPONS AGENCY
National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C.
REPORT NO
ETS-RR-87-49
PUB DATE
Oct 87
NOTE
344p.
PUB TYPE
Reports - Research/Technical (143)
Statistical
Data (110)
EDRS PRICE
MFO1 /PC14 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
*Academic Achievement; *College Entrance
Examinations; College Mathematics; College Science;
Computer Science; Engineering Education; Higher
Education; High Schools; Majors (Students);
Mathematics Education; Minority Groups; *National
Surveys; Science Education; *Secondary School
Mathematics; *Secondary School Science; Sex
Differences; Standardized Tests
IDENTIFIERS
*Scholastic Aptitude Test
ABSTRACT
This study analyzed data from the Scholastic Aptitude
Test (SAT) taken by high school seniors between 1915 and 1986. Its
purpose was to study trends in the numbers, test scores, and other
characteristics of examinees planning to major in mathematics,
science, and engineering, and to compare these data with comparable
data from examinees planning to major in other areas. The major
findings included: (1) the number of examinees planning to major in
mathematics, science, and engineering increased until 1983 and has
since declined; (2) examinees planning to major in mathematics,
science, and engineering in 1986 obtained SAT Verbal
scores averaging
19 points higher than the average for all examinees, although the
means varied greatly depending upon the specific major field choice;
(3) the average SAT Mathematics scores of examinees planning
to major
in mathematics, science, and engineering in 1986
were 38 points
higher than the average for all test takers; (4) examinees intending
to study pre-medicine, classics, comparative literature, philosophy,
classical languages, Chinese, Latin, Russian, education of the gifted
and talented, and mathematics education had higher
means than those
interested in mathematics, science, and engineering; (5) the Verbal
and Mathematics scores of examinees interested in computer science
have declined 26 and 40 points respectively in the last ten
years;
(6) there are still more males than females interested in
mathematics, science, and engineering; (7)
women planning to major in
electrical, mechanical, and civil engineering have higher
average SAT
Mathematics scores than the men interested in these fields; and (8)
mean SAT Mathematics scores of blacks planning to major in
mathematics, science, and engineering have risen considerably
over
the past decade, especially among those planning to major in
mathematics or statistics. (TW)
RR-87-49
R
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TEN-YEAR TRENDS IN SAT SCORES AND OTHER
H
CHARACTERISTICS OF HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS TAKING
E
THE SAT AND PLANNING TO STUDY MATHEMATICS,
SCIENCE, OR ENGINEERING
P
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R
T
Jeri lee Grandy
"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS
U S DEPARTMENT
OF EDUCATION
MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
Office of Educational
Research and Improvement
.r5
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Points 01 view or opnronsstated
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OERI position or policy
00
1.-
ri
Educational Tasting Service
Princeton, New Jersey
October 1987
Ui
BEST COPY AVAILABLE
ul
2
TenYear Trends in SAT Scores and Other Characteristics
of High School Seniors Taking the SAT and
Planning to Study Mathematics, Science, or Engineering
Jerilee Grandy
Educational Testing Service
October 1987
The research reported herein was funded by .:he National Science
Foundation.
Points of view or opinions stated do not necessarily represent
official opinions or policies of the National Science Foundation.
Copyright © 1987 by Educational Testing Service
CONTENTS
Page
SUMMARY
1
BACKGROUND
2
PURPOSE
2
METHOD
3
Major Field Definitions
3
Variables Analyzed
6
RESULTS
7
Results Based on All Examinees
7
Numbers selecting math, science, and engineering
7
Test scores of examinees planning to major in
math, science, and engineering
9
Other characteristics of examinees planning to major
in math, science, and engineering
14
Comparisons with examinees planning to major in
.on science fields
15
Results for Subgroups
17
REFERENCES
27
TABLES
28
APPENDICES
185
4
SUMMARY
This study analyzed data from the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)
taken
by high school seniors between 1975 and 1986.
Its purpose was to study
trends in the numbers, test scores, and other characteristics of
examinees
planning to major in math, science, and engineering, and to
compare these
data with comparable data from examinees planning to major in other
areas.
The major findings were as follows:
1. The number of examinees planning to major in
math, science, and
engineering increased until 1982, and has since declined.
Aerospace and
electrical engineering as well as international relations showed steadily
increasing interest, while interest in majoring in computer science de-
clined 49 percent in the past three
years.
2. Examinees planning to major in math, science, and engineering in
1986 obtained SAT Verbal scores averaging 19 points higher
than the average
for all examinees, although the means varied greatly depending
upon the
specific major field choice.
3. The average SAT Mathematics
scores of examinees planning to major
in math, science, and engineering in 1986 were 38 points higher than the
average for all test takers.
There is considerable variation in the math
aptitudes of examinees planning to study math, science, and
engineering.
The highest means have been obtained consistently by those
planning to
major in physics.
Those planning to major in agriculture, child psycholo-
gy, general psychology, social psychology, sociology, law enforcement, and
miscellaneous social sciences all have had averages consistently below the
nean for all examinees.
4. Examinees intending to study pre-medicine, classics,
comparative
literature, philosophy, classical languages, Chinese, Latin, Russian, edu-
cation of the gifted and talented, and mathematics education had higher
means than those interested in math, science, and engineering.
5. The Verbal and Math scores of examinees interested
in computer
science have declined 26 and 40 points respectively in the last ten
years.
6. There are still more males than females interested
in math, sci-
ence, and engineering, and the women do not seem to be catching up with the
men in terms of majoring in these fields.
7. Women planning to major in electrical, mechanical, and
civil engi-
neering have higher average SAT Math
scores than the men interested in
these fields.
8. Mean SAT Math scores of blacks planning
to major in math, science,
and engineering have risen considerably over the past decade, especially
among those planning to major in mathematics or statistics.
1
BACKGROUND
High school seniors who take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)
com-
pose a large population, many of whom become college freshmen shortly
thereafter.
While not all college students have taken the SAT and not all
SAT takers become college students, there is sufficient overlap
between SAT
examinees and the college-going population to warrant serious study of the
approximately one million high school seniors who take the SAT each
year.
One advantage to studying the population of SAT examinees is that
about 90 percent complete a background questionnaire entitled
the Student
Descriptive Questionnaire (SDQ) in which they specif,
the major field in
which they intend to major.
This information enables the researcher to
follow trends in numbers of students planning to major in specific fields
as well as trends in their test scores and other background data.
While there is no guarantee that examinees will actually major in the
fields they specify,
the choices they make when they take the SAT provide
an indication of their interests at that time and reflect the decisions
they have made thus far regarding their educational futures.
PURPOSE
The purpose of the present study
was to answer the following kinds of
questions:
1.
How have examinees' interests in majoring in math, science, and
engineering changed over the past ten years?
Which areas of math, science, and engineering have increased
2.
in
popularity and which have deLianed?
3.
How have test scores and other characteristics of examinees plan-
ning to major in math, science, and engineering changed
over the past
2
6
decade?
How do examinees planning to major in math,
4.
science, and en-
gineering compare with examinees planning to major in various other fields?
How do males and females differ in their interest in
5.
majoring in
math, science, arid engineering, and have these differences changed
over the
past decade?
How do males and females planning to major in math,
6.
science, and
engineering differ in their test scores and other characteristics, and have
these differences changed over the past decade?
How have blacks changed over the past decade in their
7.
interest iL
majoring in math, science, and engineering and in their
test scores and
background characteristics?
METHOD
The analyses included data on all high school seniors who took
the SAT
from 1975 to 1986, excluding 1976.
Major Field Definitions
When examinees register to take the SAT, 90 percent of them fill
out
the SDQ which asks, among ocher things, in what field they intend
to major.
In 1976 and again in 1986, the College Board revised
the SDQ and changed
many of the major fields.
An unsuccessful attempt in 1976 to translate the
major field codes so that those prior to that
year would be comparable to
those in subsequent years resulted in the major field
odes for 1976 being
deleted from the files.
By 1977, a reasonable translation was made, but it
is still clear that between 1975 and 1977, the definitions of
many major
fields changed enough to make trend analyses based
on those fields meaning-
less.
In 1986, the College Board again revised the major fields, adding
many new ones and rewording old ones.
Appendices A and B show the two
7
3
versions of the SDQ, one for 1977 to 1985, and the other for 1986.
The
major field codes are listed at the end of each SDQ.
A major task in this
project was to make the two versions of major field categories comparable
and to map them on to the fields recognized by the National Science Founda-
tion (NSF).
The major fields defining math, science, and engineering for this
study were consistent with those published by NSF (1983) in their Survey of
Graduate Science and Engineering Students and Postdoctorates.
The analyses
broke down math, science, and engineering into ten different fields, with
some of these being further divided into more detailed subfields as
follows:
Mathematics and Statistics
1.
Computer Science
2.
Physical Sciences
3.
Astronomy
a.
Chemistry
b.
Physics
c.
Architecture and Environmental Engineering
4.
Engineering
5.
Aerospace Engineering
a.
Electrical Engineering
b.
Chemical Engineering
c.
Me:hanical Engineering
d.
Civil Engineering
e.
Other Engineering
f.
Life Sciences
6.
Agriculture
a.
Biological Sciences
b.
Earth and Environmental Sciences
7.
Psychology
8.
Child Psychology
a.
General Psychology
b.
Social Psychology
c.
8
4
Social Sciences
9.
Economics
a.
International Relations
b.
Law Enforcement
c.
Political Science
d.
Sociology
e.
Other Social Sciences
f.
10.
Interdisciplinary and Other Sciences
The non-science categories consisted generally of
major fields
attracting more than 3,000 examinees.
Very small fields, such as philoso-
phy,
were grouped with similar small fields composing larger categories,
such as "humanities."
This study used the following non-science
categories:
Pre-medicine
1.
Other health fields
2.
Prelaw
3.
Humanities
4.
History and culture
5.
6.
Foreign languages
Studio and perfuming arts
7.
8.
Cominun ications
Business
9.
10.
Education
11.
Vocational Fields
12.
Other/missing/undecided
The reader may wish to combine the data for foreign
languages with
humanities and possibly the data from history and culture
as well.
It was
not practical to break down each category into all of
its constituents,
even though the results might have been of interest to specialists in those
areas.
The last category contained primarily
those who did not respond to the
question on major field preference and those who marked "undecided."
There
were a minute number of "other" major fields not included in the first
eleven categories.
Appendix C defines the correspondence between major fields
listed in
5
the SDQ and the major field categories as they appear in the tables for
math,
science, and engineering.
Appendix D shows the correspondence for
non-science major fields.
Variables Analyzed
This study reports trends from 1975 to 1986 in
seven different vari-
ables as well as standard deviations for SAT
The variables are as
scores.
follows:
Number selecting each major field;
1.
2.
Percentage selecting each major field;
Mean and standard deviation of SAT Verbal
3.
score;
Mean and standard deviation SAT Mathematics score;
4.
5.
Mean self-reported high school grade in mathematics;
Mean self-reported rank in high school class;
6.
Percentage who intend eventually to receive
7.
a graduate degree.
Analyses included trends in all of these variables for white males,
white females, black males, black females, "other" students,
and all exami-
nees combined.
Analyses of the smaller ethnic groups would have produced
unstable results because the numbers
were so small.
The "other" group
simply contained all examinees who answered the major field
question but
were either members of a smaller ethnic group or did not respond to the
ethnic identity question.
As a group, their data are not especially
meaningful, but they are included so that the totals for all
examinees "add
up."
In summary,
the reader should note the following limitations in the
data:
1:1kta were not available for 1976.
1.
Data for 1975 were not always comparable
2.
to subsequent data
because of difficulties in translating
major field categories.
Data for 1986 were not always comparable to previous data because
3.
t0
6