DESCRIPTORS *Educational Research, *Junior Colleges, *Transfer Students, *Validity

To compare more validly the first semester GPA's of transfer students from junior colleges and 4-year institutions, this University of Missouri-Columbia study concentrated on establishing matched samples as the basis for such comparisons. Matching was based on total School and College Abilities Test (SCAT) scores, academic division entered, and sex. Thirty transfer stuelents from each of the following schools made up the population from which random samples of 1! students each were drawn: (1) Kansas City Junior College District, (2) St. tollis Junior College District, (3) the University of Missouri- Kansas City, and (4) the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The first semester post-transfer mean GPA's of the combined junior college and university groups were compared, and a t-test of significance between correlated means applied. Differences were not significant At the previously specifiei.05 level, rased on this finding, it appears questionable that junior coli.ege transfers suffer significantly more from "transfer shock " than oter transferees. Any differences between the two groups might reflect institutional grading practices more than any other variable. (JO