PREDICTIVE VALIDITY OF THE MATHEMATICS PLACEMENT EXAMINATION

announced the availability of a new test, the Mathematics Place-ment Examination (Exam), for use in college placement. The Exam consists of two 50-minute parts and provides scores in Intermedi-ate Algebra, College Algebra, Trigonometry, and Special Topics. Development, reliability, validity, and suggested uses of the Exam are described in detail in the Manual for the ACT Mathematics Placement Examination (Shevel and Whitney, 1968). Purpose. Student ACT scores and high school grades are nor-mally available to colleges and universities prior to student regis-tration and can be used in placement. The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether the Mathematics Placement Exam-ination offered sufficient improvement in the prediction of college mathematics grades to warrant its addition to a college’s testing program. A secondary purpose was to compare the differential pre-dictive validity of the Mathematics Placement Examination wit