Undergraduate Ability Factors in Relationship to Graduate Performance.

TLDR: In this article, the authors investigated the relationship among a series of criteria which can be employed in considering admission of students in graduate psychology programs and assessed the validity of these criteria for predicting graduate level performance.

Abstract: THE present study investigated the relationships among a series of criteria which can be employed in considering admission of students in graduate psychology programs. Further, the validity of these criteria for predicting graduate level performance was assessed. The following set of variables subsumes most of the criteria which are employed in considering candidates for graduate work in psychology: the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Aptitude Tests and the GRE Advanced Test in Psychology; the Miller Analogies Test (MAT) ; undergraduate grade point average; grade point average in the junior and senior years of undergraduate work; increase in the grade point average in the last two years over the first two years of undergraduate work; number of mathematics and logic courses taken; rating of the department which the student attended as an undergraduate; sex of the student; amount of research experience of the student as an undergraduate; an average assessment of the overall promise of the student as a graduate student ; and a rating of the student’s research in contrast to service orientation-the latter three being assessed from letters of recommendation and/or biographical statements of the student. There is research evidence relating scores on the MAT and the GRE, as well as undergraduate grade point average, to graduate school performance. The evidence relating to the MAT obtained in studies by Cureton, Cureton and Bishop (1949), Kelley and Fiske