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Show IProfessor Studies Placement Problem n By HARRIS VINCENT Chronicle Staff Writer Predicting the academic success suc-cess of a student in college or vocational training is a challenge facing most high school counselors counse-lors today. Dr Frank B. Jex, professor of educational psychology at the University, said, "When we know what combination of preparation and abilities is important for success in a given course of study, much of the doubt and uncertainty can be taken out o. educational decisions. "WHAT HAS BEEN desperately desperate-ly needed," he continued, "is local research to answer the question: In which course of higher education is this student most apt to succeed?" Dr. Jex has just completed a study aimed at meeting the challenge of proper placement. HIS RESEARCH will make it possible for Utah counselors to Se p students predict their grade point averages at Utah institu-tions. institu-tions. DURING a sabbatical leave last spring, Dr. Jex spent time in residence at each university, college and vocational training school in the state, studying first-term performance. His findings were then com-pared com-pared to "the two most predictive predic-tive factors for post-high school work" the students' high school grade point averages and their percentile scores on standardized DR. FRANK JEX studles Placement The study should also be-ful be-ful for counseling young J dents. Dr. Jex believes these ' dents may be helped to seJ high school preparation the4 need to achieve their g0as I DR. JEX plans to contij study. He has already arrarT meetings with local school j selors to put his data int0p;! tical use. He presented a R summarizing the results of research at the Utah Confers-on Confers-on Higher Education. "This purports to be the b : prediction possible from 1 tive data," Dr. Jex conclj. Counselors must balance I against other factors as they ,; with individual students. The? j suits should be a wiser distr! tion of students among Uta programs of higher training education, he said. ' achievement tests. A SCALE combining the two factors was set up as a basis for predicting how well future students stu-dents with various past achievement achieve-ment levels may be expected to do at each institution. Dr. Jex' table shows that a student with average grades in high school (2.00) and average ranking on the standardized tests can expect to achieve a first-term first-term college grade point average of 1.53. ALLOWING FOR a margin of error, Dr. Jex found that a student stu-dent might expect to find his first quarter's grades anywhere from just below a D average to just above a C. The report also includes a chart showing the correlation between be-tween predicted and achieved grade point averages for 808 freshmen who entered Utah colleges col-leges in the fall of 1964. The correlation cor-relation was high in every case. IN ADDITION several tables were developed for each trade technical institute. |
