The Reliability of College Grades

Little is known about the reliability of college grades relative to how prominently they are used in educational research, and the results to date tend to be based on small sample studies or are decades old. This study uses two large databases (N > 800,000) from over 200 educational institutions...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Educational measurement, issues and practice issues and practice, 2015-12, Vol.34 (4), p.31-40
Main Authors: Beatty, Adam S., Walmsley, Philip T., Sackett, Paul R., Kuncel, Nathan R., Koch, Amanda J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Ability
Academic Achievement
Academic grading
College Freshmen
College Students
Colleges & universities
Correlation
course grades
Educational evaluation
Grade Point Average
Grades (Scholastic)
Intellectual Disciplines
measurement
Reliability
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Little is known about the reliability of college grades relative to how prominently they are used in educational research, and the results to date tend to be based on small sample studies or are decades old. This study uses two large databases (N > 800,000) from over 200 educational institutions spanning 13 years and finds that both first‐year and overall college GPA can be expected to be highly reliable measures of academic performance, with reliability estimated at .86 for first‐year GPA and .93 for overall GPA. Additionally, reliabilities vary moderately by academic discipline, and within‐school grade intercorrelations are highly stable over time. These findings are consistent with a hierarchical structure of academic ability. Practical implications for decision making and measurement using GPA are discussed.
ISSN:0731-1745
1745-3992
DOI:10.1111/emip.12096