Summary Report

ACT Collegiate Assessment

of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) Test

Fall 2011

Executive Summary

An important part of the Seminole State College assessment process is the annual evaluation of the College’s General Education Outcomes. After careful review of nationally recognized tests, the Assessment of Student Learning Committee selected the ACT Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) Test, and has used it for Fall Semesters 2006-2008 and 2011.

The CAAP Test is designed to address five areas important to the overall evaluation—Writing Skills, Mathematics, Reading, Critical Thinking, and Science. (For Fall 2011, the College did not administer the Critical Thinking module, but will do so in 2012.) The test is given to a random selection of students with 45 or more credit hours. With assistance from the Management Information Systems Department, 437 students were identified as eligible and invited to participate in the test. These students, as well as their instructors, were notified of their selection to participate in the test and informed that they would take two randomly selected modules from the four test modules. The test was administered on November 16 and 17, 2011.

Several students had withdrawn from the College by the test dates, or were granted excused absences. Thus, of those selected, 158 (36.2%) participated during one of the test sessions conducted in the Haney Center Foundation Hall.

Demographic information was self-reported, so some information may not be accurate. However, the following is a summary of what was provided by the students.

  • 76.00% were female students and 24.00% were male students,
  • 96.84% spoke English as a first language,
  • 62.00% indicated their ethnicity as White/Caucasian, 21.50% as American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 7.00% as African American/Black,
  • 57.63% were age 25 or less,
  • 76.58% had enrolled as freshmen,
  • 87.34% were full-time students,
  • 45.57% plan to transfer to a different school,
  • 76.00% indicated their educational level as sophomore,
  • 98.10% reported their cumulative GPA was above 2.0, and
  • The three majors reported the most were Health Professions, Business, and Social Sciences.

Using summary data provided by ACT, it is possible to compare mean test scores for Seminole State College students with mean test scores for students in a national database. In all modules, the scores are very close to the overall mean scores, and in most cases, are close to each other. By module, the data for Seminole State College students reveals the following:

  • Writing Skills—sophomore student scores were the highest; transfer/male/female student scores were the lowest.
  • Mathematics—transfer student scores were the highest; sophomore student scores were the lowest.
  • Reading—transfer/male student scores were the highest; sophomore/female student scores were the lowest.
  • Science—male student scores were the highest; female student scores were the lowest.

Initial analysis of the mean scores show that 85 SSC students took the Writing Skills and Reading test modules, 83 students took the Science module, and 63 students took the Reading test modules. The number of student scores in the national data base ranges from 18,877 for Science to 28,323 for Reading. Thus, comparisons made between the two groups give an excellent idea of the general education received by SSC students.

Mean scores for SSC students were slightly below the national mean scores in Mathematics and Science, while the reverse is true for Writing Skills and Reading. However, SSC mean scores for Reading and Science are within the Assessment Threshold Ranges established by the Assessment of Student Learning Committee in February 2007. TheWriting Skills mean score is 0.1 above the threshold range. Mean scores for Science are within 0.2 points of the range, but below the national mean.

ACT also provided distinct information for the Sophomore students. For sophomore students, mean scores are close for all test modules with SSC scores in Writing Skills and Science higher than the national average. Scores for Reading are slightly lower, but those for Mathematics are considerably lower.

ACT provided Certificates of Achievement to students who scored at or above the national mean on a test module. Ninety-three students—58.86% of all participants—received at least one certificate. In fact, 57students received one certificate and 43students received two certificates. The number of certificates for each module is as follows: Writing Skills—49; Mathematics—29; Reading—39; and Science—26.

Finally, while previous tests have given a limited picture of SSC student performance compared with those from across the nation, results from the first administration of the ACT CAAP Test provided the College with benchmarks for each of the areas tested—a goal of the Assessment of Student Learning Committee. Results of subsequent administrations of the test not only add to the College’s database, but also provide additional confidence in those benchmarks. Taken together, results of these administrations indicate that Seminole State College students are performing at levels consistent with students in the national database.