高级课程作业和成绩膨胀：对一年级平均绩点预测有效性的影响

Edgar I. Sanchez, PhD Inflation in high school grade point average (HSGPA) is an ever-growing concern, raisingquestions about its reliability as a measure of academic preparation and college readiness.Over the past decade, the number of students receiving higher HSGPAs has increased, makingit more difficult for college admissions officers to differentiate applicants on the basis of HSGPAalone (Sanchez, 2023; Sanchez & Moore, 2022). Grade inflation is particularly concerning forpostsecondary institutions that rely solely on HSGPA to assess academic achievement,especially with the rise of test-optional policies. Research indicates that grade inflation does notoccur uniformly across subjects, student demographics, or school characteristics, addingcomplexity to the use of HSGPA in the admissions process (Sanchez, 2023). Previously, I have explored how grade inflation affects the predictive validity of HSGPA andACT®Composite (ACTC) score in relation to first-year college GPA (FYGPA), revealing thatgrade inflation significantly affects HSGPA’s predictive validity, particularly for students withlower HSGPAs (Sanchez, in press). In contrast, ACTC scores remain stable and largelyunaffected by grade inflation, making them a valuable complementary measure to HSGPA incollege admissions. These findings underscore the importance of considering both HSGPA andACTC scores to ensure accurate and fair assessments of students’ potential college success,especially in the context of test-optional policies. Building on this in-press study, in this Data Byte, I expand that analysis to include AdvancedPlacement (AP) coursework, International Baccalaureate (IB), and honors courses. Researchhas demonstrated that students who complete AP and IB coursework tend to do better incollege than those who do not (Beard et al., 2019; Farmer, 2017; Warren & Goins, 2019).Additionally, other studies have suggested that advanced coursework indicators may be animportant additional predictor of FYGPA beyond HSGPA alone (Allen et al., 2017; Warren &Goins, 2019) because these indicators can potentially provide a clearer indication of academicrigor and preparation. I use the same data from the previous study (Sanchez, in press) to analyze whether indicatorsof having taken advanced coursework in specific subjects (i.e., English, math, science, andsocial studies) can reduce the negative impact of grade inflation on FYGPA predictions. The inclusion of indicators for students’ taking advanced coursework in English, math, science,and social studies resulted in a hierarchical linear model showing that taking advancedcoursework in English was the only advanced coursework indicator that was a significantpredictor (p< 0.001)of FYGPA. To identify whether grade inflation was moderated by these advanced coursework indicators, I ran a second model that included interactions between theadvanced coursework indicators and the measure of grade inflation (see Table 1). Once theinteractions between the advanced coursework indicators and grade inflation were included inthe model, neither the interactions with grade inflation nor the main effects of taking advancedcoursework were significant predictors of FYGPA. This indicates that, at least in the sample for this study, taking advanced coursework in English,math, science, and social studies did not mitigate the negative effects of grade inflation onHSGPA. Although students’ taking advanced coursework in English was found to be asignificant predictor of FYGPA, the lack of a significant interaction between this indicator andgrade inflation suggests that simply including advanced coursework indicators may not mitigatethe negative impact of grade inflation on HSGPA. Given that these indicators of students’ taking advanced coursework in high school were notable to mitigate the effects of grade inflation, this finding reinforces the need for a holisticadmissions approach that could include standardized test scores, advanced coursework,extracurricular activities, and personal statements to ensure that colleges have enoughinformation to comprehensively assess their applicants’ readiness for college. It is important thatthis research be replicated to understand why advanced coursework in the core subject areasdid not mitigate the deleterious effect of grade inflation. In fact, beyond the scope of gradeinflation, the indicators of taking advanced coursework were largely insignificant predictors ofFYGPA. References Allen, J., Ndum, E., & Mattern, K. (2017).An empirically-derived index of high school academicrigor(ACT Working Paper 2017-5). ACT.https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED583560.pdfBeard, J. J., Hsu, J., Ewing, M., & Godfrey, K. E. (2019). Studying the relationships between thenumber of APs, AP performance, and college outcomes.Educational Measurement:Issues and Practice,38(4), 42–54.https://doi.org/10.1111/emip.12295Farmer, D. R. (2017).The effect ofAdvancedPlacement or International Baccalaureate examscores upon