The discriminatory power of Form A of the written portion of the National Occupational Competency Test for the Architectural Trades among selected student groups in Hawaii

The central purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the written portion of the National Occupational Competency Test (NOCT) for the Architectural Trades in discriminating among persons with varying degrees of architectural trade knowledge. A secondary purpose was to determine the ability of the test to serve as an indicator of the level of architectural trade knowledge possessed by students in the architectural trades. The specific objectives of this study were to: 1. Determine the ability of the test to discriminate among a. persons with architectural trade experience, b. students in the architectural trades, c. students in the study of trade and industrial occupations other than the architectural trades and d. students not in the study of a trade and industrial occupation. 2. Determine the difficulty level of the test. 3. Establish correlations with respect to NOCT scores attained and the variables of age and educational level. Procedure: The procedure followed for this study involved administering the architectural trades examination to three student groups which were randomly selected from Honolulu and Leeward Community Colleges located on the island of Oahu in the state of Hawaii. The students were grouped on the basis of whether or not they were architectural students in their final semester of study, trade and industry students other than architectural and non-trade and industry students. Statistical techniques used in the study included analysis of variance, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample test, item analysis and the Pearson product-moment correlation.