支持增强act考试成绩解释的初步证据

Jeff Allen and Ty Cruce Introduction The ACT®test has evolved to better meet the needs of students. The changes to the test aredesigned to help students do the following: •perform their best on test day •have the flexibility and choice to determine how they will test •demonstrate their true capabilities and potential •tailor their testing experience to fit their future goals and highlight their strengths Supporting this evolution, two versions of the ACT test were administered during the June 2024national test date: the legacy ACT test and a new, enhanced ACT test. At all test centers thatadministered the test online, students who tested during that national test date were randomlyassigned to take one of the two versions of the test, and scores from either version were eligiblefor college reporting. Like the legacy test, the enhanced test includes multiple-choice tests in English, math, reading,and science. The enhanced test is shorter than the legacy test and allows more time per testquestion (item). The enhanced test also includes embedded field test items, which are notcounted in students’ scores. A comparison of the legacy and enhanced test specifications isprovided in Table 1. In addition to the changes to the number of items and time allowed, there are additionaldifferences in the test design for the enhanced test. For more details on test design, please seethe Design Framework for the ACT Enhancements (ACT, 2025). Note.*For the June 2024 administration of the enhanced ACT, 45 minutes was allotted for thescience test. In this report, we summarize some of the evidence supporting interpretations of scores from theenhanced ACT. We focus on reliability, concurrent validity, predictive validity, and scorecomparability. Other important evidence for supporting interpretations of scores from theenhanced ACT that are not covered in this report include alignment to state content standards,alignment to expectations for college and career readiness, student perceptions after testing,and other psychometric evidence (e.g., linking study design, standard error of measurement,evaluation of population invariance of equating results, and timing/speededness). For moredetails on these and other topics, please see the Design Framework for the ACT Enhancements(ACT, 2025) and the Enhanced ACT Linking Study Report (Li, Kapoor, Arthur, Huang, Cho, Qiu,& Wang, 2025). Also, note that some of the results documented in this report are alsosummarized in Chapter 4 of the Design Framework for the ACT Enhancements (ACT, 2025). We argue that the evidence presented in this report supports the interpretation of scores fromthe enhanced ACT as measures of high school academic achievement and college readiness.In turn, those interpretations support the use of scores from the enhanced ACT for informingcollege admissions decisions, awarding college scholarships, placing students into programsand courses, identifying students in need of academic support, and measuring academicachievement at the school and district level for accountability systems. Because section testscores from the enhanced ACT are linked to section test scores from the legacy ACT usingequipercentile equating methods, the enhanced ACT supports continued interpretations of ACTsection scores that were established from the legacy ACT, including interpretations of the ACTCollege Readiness Benchmarks. Methods Reliability Reliability or precision refers to the consistency of scores across replications of a testingprocedure (American Educational Research Association [AERA] et al., 2014). Examining howthe reliability coefficients of ACT test scores vary for the enhanced and legacy ACT is importantfor supporting score interpretations. We compare reliability coefficients for the enhanced andlegacy ACT administered online for students who participated in the June 2024 Linking Study.Because two enhanced ACT test forms were administered, we present the mean reliabilitycoefficients across the two forms. Reliability estimates for each enhanced ACT test form areprovided in the Enhanced ACT Linking Study Report (Li et al., 2025). We anticipate a decrease in the reliability of the section test scores and Composite score for theenhanced ACT when compared to the legacy ACT given the decrease in the number of itemsappearing on the enhanced ACT. Using the Spearman-Brown Prophecy Formula (Spearman,1910; Brown, 1910), Figure 1 illustrates the relationship of test length and reliability, assumingthat the reliabilities of the legacy ACT are .94, .93, .89, .89, and .97 for the English, math,reading, science, and Composite scores, respectively.1 Given the number of scored items for the enhanced ACT (Table 1), the reliabilities of theenhanced ACT English, math, reading, science, and Composite scores are expected to beapproximately 95%, 97%, 95%, 98%, and 99% of the reliabilities of the respective scores fromthe legacy ACT. This prediction is crude because it assumes that the tests are t